


At the Top of the World

by Lady_of_the_Flowers



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Environmentalism, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Racism, alaskan oil-drilling au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-05-05 05:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5363663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_the_Flowers/pseuds/Lady_of_the_Flowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko is sent in disgrace to Alaska's Northern coast to ensure nothing stands in the way of Sozin Oil Company’s new offshore drilling project. He is willing to do whatever it takes to make his father see he’s worthy, even if it means fighting against the one person he's met who actually seems to give a damn about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

April 4th, 2012

“Excuse me, uh, Mr. Nakayama? Mr. Nakayama would like to see you in his office.” One of his father’s nervous, nameless secretaries knocked on the open door of his office. This one was especially timid. Zuko wondered absently how many times his father had yelled at her this week.

“Tell him I’ll be in as soon as I finish proof-reading this report.” Zuko said, glancing up from his laptop to confirm she’d heard him. He hated leaving work unfinished, and meetings with his father always rattled his concentration.

“Mr. Nakayama insisted you see him immediately.” She said unhappily, fingers worrying the cuff of her blazer. Zuko sighed, closed his laptop, and followed her through the maze of cubicles to his father’s giant corner office. It had been a long day and he wasn’t the only one working late. Half of this floor's employees were still at their desks, and they raised their heads one-by-one to watch him as he walked by. He reached Ozai's office and squared his shoulders, hoping he looked more confident than he felt. This meeting either meant something very good or very bad.

“Zuko.” His father didn’t take his eyes off the file he was reading, “Close the door behind you.”

Once the door was shut, Zuko waited uneasily in the middle of the room for him to start talking. When he didn’t, Zuko asked, “What did you want to talk to me about?” The silence dragged on between them. This was bad. Very bad. Or it could be good. His mind scrambled to figure out what kind of game they were playing today.

“You’ve been a little…distracted lately.” Ozai said at last, and set the papers down his desk. He was the picture of the perfect businessman; immaculately groomed, his custom black suit all clean, crisp lines. Zuko felt sloppy and awkward in comparison, fidgeting like a misbehaving child, “I wonder what’s on your mind.”

“N-nothing.” Zuko said, too quickly, “I mean, everything’s fine. I’ve been working a lot on the logistics for our merger with BSSE.”

“Ah, yes. Ba Sing Se Energy, our greatest competitor.” His father smiled, all teeth, “That acquisition was your sister’s idea, you know. She arranged the whole thing. A great triumph for our company.” Zuko had heard it all before, but he didn’t let his annoyance show, “Meanwhile, what have you been doing? Interfering with things that are none of your concern.”

So that’s what this was about. He knew there would be repercussions at some point, “Those interns were only being paid half of what they’d been promised. It wasn’t fair, I couldn’t just—”

“Silence.” His father cut him off with a curt gesture, “I’m not interested. Your grandfather didn’t become the first Japanese-American to start an oil company so successful it has remained at the top of the Fortune 500 for over forty years because he was guided by infantile notions of _fair play_. Your sister understands that.”

“Yes, sir.” Zuko bowed his head.

“I think it’s time for you to take a little break from your work here.” Ozai said, and Zuko couldn’t stop himself from making a small, shocked sound, “You’ve lost your focus. America is entering a very critical time for the future of energy development, and this company can’t have any weak links. Especially not at the top.”

“But the merger—” He protested, although he knew it was useless, “I haven’t finished all the—”

“Let someone else handle it.” His father paused, drawing out the moment, “You’re being transferred to the Anchorage office.”

“What?” Zuko asked dumbly. His heart was hammering in his ears, he wasn’t sure he’d heard right.

Ozai continued as if he hadn’t heard him either, “As I’m sure you’re aware, we just received the federal go-ahead to commence exploratory drilling in our offshore leases in the Chukchi Sea.”

“Of course. That press-conference back in February.” Zuko knew he sounded bitter. He hadn’t been invited, although he’d heard all about it on the news and seen pictures of Azula standing at the podium, poised as ever, her smile needle-sharp.

“Precisely. This will be a good opportunity for you to learn more about how our company operates from the ground up, since you’ve already expressed an interest.”

 _Bullshit_ , Zuko thought, his eyes stinging. This was punishment. He wanted to ask why, why him, why now. He wanted to scream and shout. But he held his tongue; he had to play along, “Is this because of the lawsuit? I thought it got dropped.”

“This has nothing to do with the lawsuit.” Ozai replied sharply, “We need someone reliable the ground to ensure the project keeps moving forward, that’s all.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice had taken on a conciliatory tone that Zuko knew meant he was being manipulated, “You’ll find most Alaskans are very positive about offshore oil, especially on the Northern coast. They’re well aware that without steady revenue from the oil fields, they’d still be living in igloos and shitting in buckets. I don’t expect you’ll run into any opposition.”

“So what am I there for?” Zuko asked, and his voice cracked—his father looked amused.

“Your presence is…symbolic, I suppose. A goodwill gesture from the Sozin Oil Company showing that we’re interested in connecting with local communities, and that we take their questions and concerns very seriously.” He paused again, and now his voice was like a knife, “Of course, there are some concessions we simply won’t make. One of your responsibilities will be to negotiate those situations successfully. It’s up to you to ensure that nothing stands in the way of our drilling season this year. We’re counting on you.”

Zuko didn't need to hear the unspoken _so don't fuck it up_ to know it was there. Finished speaking, Ozai turned his attention back to the papers on his desk, a clear sign that Zuko was dismissed. 

He couldn't quite get himself to move, not yet. He looked up at his father, at the stern but familiar lines of his face, ready to make a spectacle of himself and _beg_ , but he had to avert his eyes. The sun had begun to set through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and now it had dipped low enough to halo Ozai's head with a blazing coin of light, making him impossible to look at directly, while on either side the sky rippled orange and gold like an oil fire over the vast Houston skyline. Just like a god,  Zuko thought, and swallowed all his frustration and fear and anger and turned to go. He knew that even if he argued— _especially_ if he argued—he wasn’t going to win. Indeed, if there was anything he’d learned in the past twenty-seven years of his life, it was that he never, ever won when it actually mattered. 

And so that was that. One week and several excruciatingly embarrassing press-releases later, all his belongings were packed or in boxes, every conceivable good-bye had been said, and he was drinking mini-bottles of vodka in economy class on a ten-hour flight to Anchorage.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Welcome to the top of the world," Sokka said without the even a trace of sarcasm.

Zuko’s first month in Anchorage passed faster than he thought it would. Of course, it wasn’t Houston, not by a long-shot. The city sprawl of high-rises and highways was confined to a small peninsula, beyond which there was nothing at all besides dense forest and the distant peaks of mountains. The view from his third-floor office window made him feel empty, like he was on the edge of the world with nothing to hold onto besides his rage.

 _It’s normal to have a period of adjustment,_ his uncle said over the phone more times than he could count, _but why not try to see the bright side in all this?_

Zuko didn’t have the heart to tell him there was no bright side.

And anyway, his real work was just beginning. The North Slope was ground-zero for oil—his colleagues were very insistent on that point—and it was time for him to visit, although he’d been putting it off, dreading to take yet another step further away from headquarters.  

The office secretary had arranged a week of meetings, tours, and presentations for him with the SO Co team up north, ostensibly to familiarize himself with their operation. But a memo from his father’s office reminded him of why he was really going; to review the negotiations they’d made with the stakeholders and make sure nothing cut too deep into SO Co’s bottom line. If he did well, he wouldn’t need to think about _adjusting_ anymore because he’d be guaranteed a ticket home where his real job was waiting for him.

His uncle would probably tell him not to put so much pressure on himself, but his uncle didn’t understand that it was necessary pressure, which was why he cut off all contact between them a few days before he was scheduled to depart for Barrow. He needed to focus. 

Zuko arrived in Barrow late Monday afternoon. Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t slept well the night before, and when he got to the SO Co employee gate at the Anchorage airport that morning, he was still yawning into his second coffee of the day. His flight to Deadhorse on a small combination cargo/passenger plane was as unpleasant as he expected it to be, but at least it was on-time.

In Deadhorse, he sat through several presentations about the Trans-Alaskan pipeline, then gave a brief presentation of his own, brief only because he accidentally left out a crucial part. After a torturous Q&A where the engineers poked holes in almost everything he’d said, he took a tour of the Prudhoe Bay oil processing facilities, which dragged on for much longer than it should have. Miraculously, he didn’t miss his next flight—but only because the plane was delayed two hours for no discernible reason, so he was forced to eat lunch in the shipping container they called a hotel while he waited. The food tasted fine but he started feeling sick shortly afterwards, although that could also have been from stress.

Even once he got back into the air, heavy fog at their destination kept the small plane circling for half an hour over what the pilot claimed was the city of Barrow. All Zuko could see out his window was a solid grey blanket of clouds stretching endlessly in every direction. Eventually the afternoon sun burned it away, revealing a barren grey coastline pockmarked by frozen lakes and snow ending abruptly where it met the ice-clogged sea. Two clusters of metal rooftops caught the sun blindingly, separated by a large circular lagoon and bounded on one side by the airport’s narrow landing strip. It wasn’t an inspiring sight, even by Zuko’s lowered standards.

One week, he reminded himself, and then he could return to civilization. But he couldn’t seem to chase away the knot of anxiety in his chest. When the plane hit a sudden violent pocket of turbulence on its descent, he closed his eyes and clenched his fists on his thighs, thinking of the people who might miss him if he died. There were depressingly few. When he opened his eyes again, they’d already shuddered to a stop, and the fasten seat-belt sign had been switched off.

All around him, people were rising to grab their carry-ons, but he remained seated, willing away a fresh wave of panic until the plane was empty. It was just a business trip. What could possibly go wrong?

Zuko took a deep breath, and walked down the narrow aisle with the last remaining passengers. The airport consisted of a single hall, doubling as both Departures and Arrivals. As he collected his luggage, he saw a few people lining up to check in for an outbound flight, and for a wild, weak moment he wished he could join them. He wasn’t ready for this, not even close. No matter how many times he told himself that he worked well under pressure, he knew it wasn’t true—and Ozai did too, which made it all the more bewildering that he’d been sent here instead of some flunky from PR. At least he had nothing more to do today, and could hole up in his hotel room with the mini-bar and the materials for his upcoming presentations and memorize the contents of both until morning. 

Zuko was so distracted it took him a while to realize that no one had come to meet him, and he was just standing there by like an idiot, scanning the room.

He’d been told there was going to be someone at the airport to meet him. In fact, Jee, the community liaison officer in Barrow, had _assured_ him there would be someone with a car and a sign with his name on it, waiting to take him to the hotel. But that’s what he got for trusting a disembodied voice over the phone.

He turned his iPhone back on, hoping someone from SO Co had called, but instead he found yet another voicemail from his uncle, which he ignored, and one text from Mai.

 _Don’t freeze up there_ was all it said. He re-read it and tucked the phone back into his pocket. He hadn’t asked her to relocate with him to Alaska, and she hadn’t offered either. It was probably better this way, but he felt her absence like a lack of air. Maybe the move wouldn’t have seemed so much like banishment if she was by his side, calm and composed as she tore apart whoever was responsible for this mix-up. She was so much better than he was at making people listen when it counted. 

Zuko shifted his weight from one foot to the other, anxious and a little light-headed but unwilling to sit down on one of the benches even though his stomach was still churning from that meal back in Deadhorse. He didn’t want it to look like he’d been waiting for long when someone came to pick him up, even though he had.

It's not like he was expecting red carpet treatment. He knew he was basically invisible without his father or sister by his side, but this was basic stuff. A ride to his hotel. At the very least, he thought they’d treat him like they wanted him here. He’d been told—well, his father told him—that they did. His colleagues in Anchorage were less certain, their comments about the North Slope usually ending with _you’ll see when you get there..._ This was probably just a meaningless oversight. It still stung his pride. 

He checked his phone again.  The driver was over twenty minutes late. People were boarding the next flight, giving him curious looks as they walked past. He glared back. He knew what they were looking at; it was what everyone always looked at—the numb left side of his face. It made his skin crawl.

If the driver wasn’t here in the next ten minutes, he’d figure something else out, but someone was definitely going to be hearing about this, he was _not_ going to let this slide.

The main doors swung open a minute later and a young man about his age walked in, bringing with him a gust of frigid outside air. He was tall, or at least taller than Zuko, and the sides of his head were shaved with the top left just long enough to pull into a ponytail.

“You must be Zuko,” He said in a flat, back-of-the-throat accent, and Zuko thought immediately - oh, he's an Eskimo. Not that it mattered. He was obviously also an asshole, glancing around the newly deserted hall in surprise, “Guess I’m a little late, huh?”

“Who are you?” Zuko asked rudely.

“No one told you? Coop couldn’t make it, so he sent me instead.” He looked right into Zuko’s eyes like he hadn’t even noticed the scar, and stuck out a hand in greeting, “Sokka. Nice to meet you.”  His eyes were disconcertingly blue against his skin.

“Yeah.” Zuko said, and surreptitiously wiped his sweaty palm off on his pants before shaking the outstretched hand. He had no idea who Coop was either, and it figured he’d be passed off to some _nobody_ while his sister was riding around in a limo in Saudi Arabia right now. 

“Well, car’s out front.” Sokka said, oblivious to the awkward pause, “Need a hand with your bags?”

“No.”

The cold hit Zuko like a brick wall as they exited the airport. He was wearing a black SO Co parka over his suit and tie, a parting gift from Azula who thought his transfer was hilarious. He shouldn’t have to; it was the middle of May, but the temperature was barely above freezing. He hoped he wouldn't be around long enough to get used to it. Sokka, of course, looked perfectly happy in nothing more than a baggy pair of jeans and blue sweatshirt.

“It's been a warm spring this year.” Sokka said helpfully, pulling out his keys, “Too warm.”

The car was a beat-up white van caked in mud. Sokka leaned casually up against the side, watching amused as Zuko tried to load his briefcase, laptop case, hanging garment bag, and suitcase into the back without setting any of them down on the wet ground.

“Here, let me help you with that.” He uncrossed his arms and stepped forward.

Zuko snapped, “I got it,” right as his laptop case fell directly into a puddle, “Shit!”

He knelt to pick it up, but Sokka was faster. He threw it carelessly into the back of the van then slammed the doors shut. Twirling the keys around his finger, he gave Zuko one final mocking smile, and climbed into the driver’s seat, “Let’s go.”

Zuko stood slowly, mindful of the buzzing in his head, the hot embarrassed flush across his cheeks, and got in after him. It took a few tries for the engine to turn over, but soon they were off down the bumpy, unpaved road into town.

“Welcome to the top of the world,” Sokka said without even a hint of sarcasm. He lit a cigarette and rolled the window all the way down, elbow resting casually on the edge as he drove one-handed. Cold air quickly overwhelmed the van’s heater, but he didn’t seem to notice or mind. Zuko looked out the dusty passenger window and tried very hard not to shiver.

Barrow was a dump, Zuko quickly discovered. His co-workers had failed to mention that, or maybe it was implied in all their variations on _it’s really something up there._ Drooping telephone lines and weather-beaten houses lined the gravel streets, dwarfed by an enormous hazy sky. Around all the houses were yards, more like patches of mud and dirty snow, cluttered with boats, vehicles in various states of disrepair, and unidentifiable junk. Even the quality of the light was flat and unflattering, like the sun was at a different angle than it was supposed to be.  

“Are you affiliated with SO Co?” Zuko turned away from the window.

“No way.” Sokka grinned.

“Is Coop?”

“Yeah, he's SO Co's go-to guy for airport runs,” A fragment of ash blew onto the knee of Sokka’s jeans, and Zuko nearly reached out to brush it off before he stopped himself, “He picks up all the important folks who come to town. Better than a taxi, right?”

It wasn’t.                                                              

“Then why didn’t he meet me?” Zuko asked.

“Well, he was going to, but he had to watch his granddaughter this afternoon. So he called me up and asked if I’d be willing. I said sure, why not.” Sokka veered left, and came to an abrupt stop in the parking lot outside a disjointed modernist building, complete with two flag poles and what looked like an enormous bone mounted on a pallet out front.

“Is this the hotel?” He asked.

“Nah.” Sokka turned off the engine, and the van fell silent, “I’ll be back later to pick you up and take you there.”

“Wait, what?” God, he hoped this wasn’t an impromptu meet-and-greet. If he didn’t have a chance to go to the hotel and regroup, there was no way he’d be able to make a good impression on anybody. He panicked for a quick second, but Sokka was watching him, waiting for him to snap out of it, so he cleared his throat and said, “I thought we—where are we?”

“City Hall. The mayor heard you were coming to town, and wants to talk to you.” Sokka replied, and climbed out of the van, stretching his back until it cracked even though they’d only been driving for a few minutes.

“The mayor.” Zuko repeated dully, “Of course.”

Sokka barked a laugh, and pointed Zuko towards the front door.

The mayor was a short round woman named Arlene Kiliak, who greeted him warmly and sat him down in her second-floor office. She poured him a cup of coffee and asked him a series of questions about his flight over and how he was liking Alaska so far—all of which did the exact opposite of setting him at ease. He was relieved when at last she got down to business. He knew how to talk oil, he could do it in his sleep.

He guided her through the bare bones of the project—when the drilling rigs would be arriving, how many oil spill recovery ships would be in the area, who their contractors were, what new jobs were being created. She’d obviously heard all of it before, probably from that asshole Zhao, Vice President of the Alaska branch, and he got the feeling the only reason she wanted to see him was because his father was the president of SO Co. He dug around in his briefcase and came up with a slightly crumpled info packet to show her. This, he knew, she hadn’t seen before—he’d put it together himself. She looked over the pages carefully and asked if she could keep them for future reference.

“Of course.” Zuko said with a smile, feeling like he was back on solid ground again, “We value transparency at every level of our operation. I can also send you the presentation I gave at Prudhoe Bay, if you’re interested. It provides a bit more detail about the equipment we’ll be using and includes a seismic profile of the offshore lease.”

“That would be nice.” She said, and stood up, setting her empty cup on the desk, “It was a pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you.” Zuko said, embarrassingly sincere, and shook her hand again, “I know I speak for the entire Sozin Oil Company when I say we are looking forward to beginning our drilling season this July.”

Her expression tightened for a moment, but then she nodded, "Us too." She ushered him down the stairs and into the atrium, where a few casually-dressed people were milling around, chatting. He barely noticed them on his way towards the exit until the mayor stopped him with a hand on his arm. He flinched, and she kindly pretended not to notice.

“I’d like to introduce you to some of my colleagues.” She said.

A man wearing a baseball cap shook Zuko’s hand vigorously, “My name’s Ronald, but you can call me Ron. Chief Administrative Officer of the North Slope Borough.”

“Zuko Nakayama.”

“What are you? Japanese?” He asked, eyes flickering back and forth between the damaged and undamaged sides of Zuko’s face.

“Yeah, a few generations ago.” Zuko answered shortly.

Then there were more hands to shake, more names to try and fail to remember. Zuko hoped none of them were going to be important.

Social situations weren’t his strong suit. He’d failed spectacularly enough times that his father generally kept him away from public relations. It didn’t help that they kept addressing everything they said to his scar, which made him want to peel his skin off one layer at a time. He grit his teeth and tried to pull himself together so they wouldn’t know their looks bothered him. He had to be a professional.

 “Hey, you want to come over for dinner tonight once you get settled in?” The guy with the baseball cap asked, “My wife’s got caribou stew in the slow-cooker.”

“No. Thank you. I’m not hungry.” Zuko said. The coffee hadn’t done much to settle his stomach, not that he expected it to.

“Are you sure? It’s good. Tastes just like beef.” He laughed.

“I’m sure.”

“You’ll have to come over some other time, then. How long are you going to be in Barrow?”

As short a time as possible, Zuko wanted to answer. Instead he said, “One week, if all goes well.”

“Good, good. And how’re you liking Alaska so far?”

Zuko stalled, “Well, I haven’t—I just got here a month ago.”

“Where have you been staying? Anchorage?” The man didn’t seem to be giving up.

“Yeah—yes.” Zuko craned his neck to look out the glass doors for Sokka’s van, his only means of escape, but instead managed to catch the eye of one of the women who’d introduced themselves to him, Rita-something.

 “Any plans to take a tour while you’re here?” She wandered over.

“I—I’m not sure.” Zuko said, “I didn’t see it on my itinerary, but—“

“Well, you should. It’s important to get a feel for the place your oil drilling is going to affect.” She said, and then in an entirely different tone of voice, “And Barrow’s a great place. There’s a real sense of community, and people are very friendly.”

Zuko was saved from having to come up with a response by the mayor brushing past him, apparently on her way out, bundled up in a parka with a purse on her arm, her long braid tucked into her scarf.

“Your ride’s not here yet?” She asked, “Why don’t you grab another cup of coffee while you wait? I’m headed home, but there’s a pot in the kitchen, so help yourself.”  

“Okay.”

“I can get you some if you want,” The woman he’d been speaking to before offered, indicating her empty thermos, “I’m going for a refill of my own.”

“No, I, uh—I’ve already had some.”

“Are you sure?”

He _was_ sure, but he was also too exhausted to really care one way or the other, so he let her get some for him and then drank the whole cup just to be polite. Uncle was always on his case about cutting back on the caffeine, and he would, but today was not that day.

There was a distinct squeal of breaks from out in the parking lot, and Zuko saw Sokka’s dirty van pull up through the glass doors. He ditched the coffee cup and walked out into the lot, zipping his parka up to his chin. Someone left the building behind him, but he didn’t look back to see who it was.

Sokka waved and walked across the parking lot, smiling hugely. He’d lost his hair-tie sometime in the past hour and his hair hung loose, blown into his eyes by the wind. Zuko’s heart tripped for a moment before it started up double-time, pounding away in his chest. It must be the coffee, he thought. But he couldn’t help smiling back, just a little.

 “Rita!” Sokka called, and walked right past Zuko to hug the woman who’d followed him, “Good to see you. I thought you were still out of town monitoring ice seal.”

“I’m going back out in a couple days. I just wanted to be around, you know...” She glanced at Zuko as she said it, and his skin prickled with irritation. 

“Yeah, me too.” Sokka lit a cigarette, and they started catching up like old friends. For all Zuko knew, they were. He pulled his hood up over his head to protect against the cold breeze, and listened to their conversation impatiently from the sidelines.

“So when’d you get here?” Rita asked.

“Flew in a couple days ago.” Sokka replied, “I’ll be around for a few weeks." 

“Staying with Margaret and her kids?” When Sokka nodded, she said, “I bet she’s already got you doing repairs on her house, hasn’t she?” 

“Yeah. Her roof’s got a leak so I’m patching it the best I can. I don’t mind the work, and she always feeds me well afterwards.”

“That’s Marge for you.” They laughed, and the conversation turned to hunting and local news and the weather until Zuko was so frustrated and jittery and sick he could hardly stand it.

“It’s time for me to check in at the hotel.” He cut in during a lull, and Sokka looked over at him like he hadn’t realized he was standing there the whole time. _Right_ , Zuko reminded himself. Asshole.

“Oh, oops.” Sokka said, looking chagrined, and made some lengthy goodbyes to Rita before they could finally head to the van. Zuko sank into the lumpy seat and sighed as his body suddenly ached with the release of tension, old injuries from his martial arts days come back to haunt him. They didn't do too well in the cold, he was beginning to realize. 

“Sorry that took forever. I get spaced-out sometimes.” Sokka said, backing out of the parking lot with only a cursory glance in the rearview mirror.

When Zuko didn’t say anything, Sokka studied him more carefully and said, “You don’t look so good. How’d it go?”

“I’m fine. It went fine.”

“Okay.” Sokka said, sounding unconvinced. He made the fastest K-turn Zuko had ever witnessed then swerved, deftly maneuvering the van past an ATV that appeared out of nowhere. Zuko gulped down the rising nausea. 

“I’m just tired.” Zuko insisted, once the danger had passed.

“Sure.” Sokka turned the radio on, classic rock hits from the 80’s, “So what do you do, exactly? I mean, what are you doing _here_?”

“I’m a representative from headquarters.” He’d been warned not to give too much away to the locals, but he couldn’t stop himself from qualifying, “It’s just a temporary post.”

“Okay, that was helpful.” Sokka said, and Zuko was fairly certain he didn’t mean it, “What did you do before?”

“Oh. Um. I was—I am a financial analyst.” At Sokka’s blank look, he continued, “Like an accountant.”

“Do you like it?”

It was the only job his father had offered him, so of course he’d taken it, no questions asked. And the pay was - well, pretty phenomenal. Although he probably would have considered his options a bit more carefully if he’d known he was going to be sucked right back into the same family drama bullshit he'd tried to escape from in the first place.

“Yes, I do.” He knew the words sounded insincere, so he tried a little harder, “It’s a good job. I was lucky to get it.”

Sokka frowned. He looked like he was about to say something else, but then a pair of teenagers walking along the side of the road came into view through the cracked windshield, and he got distracted again. Apparently he really did know everyone. He pulled to a stop, honking and waving. They exchanged greetings in a language Zuko didn’t recognize, although it did explain Sokka’s accent. Eventually Sokka leaned half-way out of the open window to give them both hugs, laughing, suddenly loud with goodbyes, then pulled himself back into the vehicle and started to drive away.

Turning to Zuko, still lit up with laughter, he asked, “Hey, wanna get something to eat with me? I’m starving.”

Zuko’s annoyance evaporated, replaced by something like fear.

 “No. I, uh.” He swallowed, “I’ve got work to do at the hotel.”

Sokka shrugged, smile falling away, “Alright. Suit yourself.”

Zuko was suddenly, strangely desperate to get all that focused warmth back, but he bit his tongue and looked out the window, away from where Sokka’s fingers were drumming on the steering wheel. The road they were following ran parallel to the sea on a narrow stretch of land. The lagoon he’d seen from the air was on their right, ice blazing in the sun.

“Your hotel’s real nice.” Sokka said after a while, an apologetic note in his voice, “You can see the water from it.”

“Oh. Okay.” Zuko wished Sokka wouldn’t sound like that. It made him think he’d turned down something more significant than a friendly offer, which he knew wasn’t true. He kept his eyes focused on the passing scenery. On the beach there was a blue and yellow football field, next to a rectangular compound of greying trailers. A rising yellow flame was emblazoned above the main door.

“That’s the SO Co crew camp.” Sokka pointed out needlessly. Zuko nodded. He would know that symbol anywhere; it might as well be tattooed on his soul. Or branded on his face.

“Is the hotel close?” He asked in a tight voice. The shore on their right began to curve out again, houses coming back into view. They were past the lagoon now.

“Nearly there.” Sokka said, and made a final hair-raising turn into the parking lot of a large building a stone’s throw from the lagoon, “Ta da!” The van lurched to a stop.

Zuko closed his eyes, took a deep breath to steady himself, and got out. The hotel looked like a bunch of light blue FEMA trailers stacked two high and several deep, but Sokka hadn’t lied; half its windows overlooked either the seashore or the lagoon. This time, Sokka didn’t bother to ask if Zuko wanted help with the bags, he just carried them all to the door himself while Zuko trudged up the steps behind him, trying not to make it obvious how he was staring at the subtle shift of muscles beneath Sokka's sweatshirt. 

Once they got into the lobby, Sokka turned to him with a look on his face like goodbye, and Zuko thought _finally_ and also _no, not yet._

“Good meeting you.” Sokka said.

“Likewise.” Zuko said. He thought they were going to shake hands, but Sokka darted forward and hugged him, quick and tight. Zuko froze when he felt the heat of Sokka's bare cheek brush against his ear, but before he could react, Sokka was pulling back, smiling like the sun, the skin at the corners of his blue eyes crinkled in a series of barely perceptible laugh-lines.

“See you around.” He said, and then he winked, that fucking _asshole._ It took a long time for Zuko to get the burning flush in his cheeks to die down enough for him to face the receptionist. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko almost laughed - _of course_ this was where they sent him, to a place without night.

The hotel room was less than ideal, but it was warm and had a door with a lock, so Zuko didn’t bother trying to argue for an upgrade to one of the deluxe suites, despite the lack of mini-bar. He dumped his luggage on the bed and went to take a shower, too exhausted to contemplate doing much more.

He turned the water to its hottest setting and muffled a yelp as he stepped under the spray. It was scalding, and his skin turned an angry pink almost immediately upon contact, but it helped ease the tension in his body, chase the chill out of his bones. Mai always teased him about how hot he liked the water whenever they showered together and made him turn it down, but he loved it just this side of unbearable.

Eventually he relaxed enough to try jerking off, but thinking about Mai’s lithe, androgynous body moving against him made him sad so he gave up half-way through. He missed her, more than ever. Hopefully she missed him too, not that she’d tell him even if she did. It wasn’t her way.

Hoping to chase away the lingering sadness, Zuko got out of the shower and put a fresh set of clothes on, then sat down at the cheap desk, laying out his laptop and all the materials from his briefcase on it. He'd forgotten to towel off his hair, and it began to dampen the back of his shirt, but he didn't bother getting up again. He had more important things to worry about. The presentation at Prudhoe Bay was a failure, one he could have prevented if he’d been better prepared. And if he hadn’t let himself get flustered.

He always took things too personally, that was his problem. There wasn't really any way to fix it, besides caring less what others thought of him, which he'd never had much success with. But he could at least make sure the material he was presenting was accurate, and that he knew it by heart. His uncle told him frequently that obsessing over mistakes was unhealthy behavior, but he’d rather throw his own failures in his face than have others do it for him. He was glad, for a brief, guilty second, that Uncle Iroh was over 3,500 miles away in Austin and couldn’t see him right now, tearing his hair out over a few estimates he couldn’t find the original sources for.

Outside the window, the sound of seabirds and cars died away. It was easy to lose himself in the flat, unchanging light, a weird 4 PM that lasted and lasted until his phone rang, and he realized almost three hours had passed. He leaned back in his chair, eyes blurring, and fumbled for the phone in his pocket.

It was Jee, the operations manager and his primary contact in Barrow, checking to see if he’d gotten to his hotel alright. Zuko would have appreciated the gesture if it hadn’t been several hours too late, so he made it very clear to Jee that while the accommodations were acceptable— _barely_ —pretty much everything else that had happened that day was _not_ , especially being thrown into an impromptu meeting with the Mayor of the North Slope Borough by someone who shouldn’t even hold a driver’s license, much less get hired to drive Ozai Nakayama's own son. 

“You would have been prepped for meeting with Arlene if we’d had any advance warning. She’s unpredictable, you must have been told about that before you came,” Jee replied, and Zuko had to admit that he had, “And I had nothing to do with the decision to send Sokka as a replacement driver. He’s a good guy, though. I’m surprised you didn’t like him.”

“He was reckless and unprofessional. In the future, I would prefer a driver who is actually an employee of SO Co, and not some—” He stopped himself and took a deep breath, “Anyway. I want to hold a meeting this evening to discuss what the game plan is for my week here, since obviously I can’t rely on my schedule to be accurate.”

He thought it was a reasonable request, although Jee didn’t sound very happy about getting to work right away. Sounded, in fact, extremely resistant. 

“Let’s make it a dinner meeting.” Zuko said, because he couldn't pretend even to himself that he had enough energy to argue, “Where would you recommend?”

“There’s a place near the beach that you might like.” Jee said, sounding resigned, “I’ll text you the address.”

“Tell the other two team leaders to meet us there at seven o’clock, too." 

“But that’s in half an hour—”

Zuko stiffened, “Is there a problem?”

“No, it’s just—” Jee hesitated, not a good sign, “Well, it’s a bit short notice, that’s all. Rodney’s going to be at the field station in Wainwright until tomorrow, and I know Mark likes to eat dinner with his family. Why don’t we reschedule for—”

“What’s he doing out of town? He did know I was arriving today, didn’t he? Don’t answer that.” Zuko tried to think like Azula, or his father, “I have to admit, I'm not impressed with what I'm hearing about the work environment here. Don’t think I won’t be mentioning it to Mr. Nakayama when he asks for my progress report.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

Zuko sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose, “Make sure Mark shows up. Seven o’clock. No excuses. And it’s your responsibility to fill Rodney in before our next meeting. I have limited time here and I need to make the most of it.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Nakayama.” Jee said, and the sarcasm left a sour taste in Zuko’s mouth.

After hanging up, he tried to write a list of all the things they needed to cover at this first meeting, but he couldn’t focus. The coffee had burned through his system a while ago, leaving behind his exhausted shell. He knew drinking more would put an end to whatever hopes he had of sleeping tonight, but the old familiar haze was rising again and the last thing he wanted was to black out during the meeting and be unable to remember a word of what was said later. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The coffeemaker on his dresser spluttered and steamed, filling the room with the pungent smell of burning coffee. He filled one of the complimentary mugs to the brim and drank most of it in one go, barely feeling the burn on his tongue and throat. A few minutes later, his heartrate began to rise, and he felt his brain get back online, the static in his head falling away. Feeling marginally more human, he returned to his list and finished it in time to walk to dinner.

Predictably enough, Jee’s directions lead Zuko back across the lagoon to a Japanese restaurant—more accurately described as a small, greying shack. It never failed to annoy him when people assumed he liked, or even _ate_ , sushi, just because of his last name. Still, there was something reassuring about seeing familiar items on the menu, even if the only times he ate raw fish were when his creepy great-aunts Li and Lo forced him to. He looked down at the laminated menu in his hands, lost in memories of family vacations to the Florida Keys as a child, of sitting next to Azula on the couch in Li and Lo’s stuffy beach-house and wishing he knew how to be like her, perfectly poised even when she was bored out of her mind, while he squirmed and fidgeted and drew their father’s wrath.

“Mr. Nakayama?” Jee prompted, gesturing to the waitress who’d shown up at their table and was waiting to take his order. Zuko refocused his eyes on the menu. The coffee wasn’t working as well as he’d hoped.

He got udon noodles, comfort food, and they tasted almost as good as his uncle’s did; surprising, given the restaurant’s location and appearance. He took a moment to enjoy the flavors and the sharp pang of nostalgia that followed, before getting back to his list, ignoring the look Jee shot Mark over his head when they thought he wouldn’t notice. He wasn’t here to make friends. He was here to keep this project on track, and if they couldn’t appreciate that, well...

It was clear that the SO Co team in Barrow had gone too long without sufficient oversight from headquarters. The informality was bad enough, but that bothered him mostly on a personal level. What really irked Zuko was their lack of dedication, how everything they said was hedged with uncertainty.

The more he tried to pin them down about anything, the less successful he was. We’re on for the public forum about oil spill clean-up procedures on Wednesday _if_ the weather holds, _if_ the flights are running, _if_ the whalers aren’t already out on the ice, _if_ the conference room isn’t occupied, _if_ the environmental impact report comes on time.

“I was under the impression that the report had already been completed and submitted to the Department of the Interior.” Zuko said, and Jee shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure it has, but it usually take them a few days to remember to forward things to me. I wouldn’t worry about it, it’ll come through eventually.”

Zuko’s jaw hurt from clenching it so hard to stop himself from saying something he’d regret. 

Back at the hotel, he skimmed through three quarters of an oil spill recovery equipment overview before he finally accepted that he wasn’t capable of focusing on anything more complex than the waterstained ceiling above his bed, no matter how recently he'd had coffee. The dull light outside his windows made the hours melt together. He didn’t know what time it was, although it was probably late. He closed his eyes, hoping for rest, but instead, as his mind drifted, he remembered how warm and solid Sokka had felt against him in that brief hug. 

He was glad he hadn’t accepted Sokka’s invitation to a meal, because then he couldn’t have had the most unproductive meeting of his life, but still, he wished—it might have been nice to—

He stopped that thought before it went any further. He got up from the bed and pulled the blackout curtains shut, casting the room in artificial darkness. Slivers of light still shone through the chinks. It seemed ridiculous to even try, but he knelt by his duffle bag and dug around anyway, searching for his sleeping medications. They weren’t in with his shaving kit, or his clothes, or anywhere. Panic rose, tight and constricting, but he shoved it down. He had to have brought them, so they had to be here, somewhere. Maybe in his briefcase.

There were no pill bottles in his briefcase.

He panicked.

It took him a while to calm down, work through the anger and frustration that followed. He contemplated calling his uncle, just to hear a familiar voice, but stopped himself before he got his phone out. He wasn’t sixteen anymore, for fuck’s sake, he could handle one night without sleeping pills. He used to do it all the time. Of course, that was before he was sent to the emergency room following a spectacular car crash that he couldn’t even remember because he’d fallen asleep at the wheel and woken up in the hospital with his uncle sitting next to him on the bed, crying.

Zuko took a deep breath. Tomorrow he’d find a pharmacy and see if his doctor could call in an emergency prescription. But for now he was fine. He would be fine.

He spent several restless hours tossing in bed, disjointed thoughts racing through his mind, before he finally accepted defeat and checked his phone. It was 3 AM. If he fell asleep now he could still get four hours. But that wasn’t going to happen. The dim light through the curtains allowed him to see just enough to locate his clothes and pull them back on. He zipped up his parka and double-checked to make sure he had his room key before heading out down the empty hallway.

The lobby was empty too, besides an enormous taxidermy polar bear guarding the entrance. All the lights were still on, useless in the watery sunlight coming through the windows. It had the surreal quality of a waking dream. Zuko walked soundlessly through the lobby, and pushed open the door.

The air outside was frigid, cutting through him like a knife, and he was absurdly glad of it. No dream ever felt quite this real. Animal skins hanging on the clothesline of a house across the street flapped violently in the wind. He pulled his hood up and turned away from the wind, away from the blank windows of the houses, to face the dirty ice, rocky beach, and glittering sea. The sun hovered low over the water. Zuko almost laughed— _of course_ this was where they sent him, to a place without night.

He had a split-second of warning, the crunch of gravel underfoot, before he heard someone say from behind him, “Can’t sleep?”

It was Sokka, sweatshirt replaced by a blue parka with a white fur hood, ambling down the road towards him. Zuko groaned, and resisted the urge to turn away, pretend he hadn’t seen him.

“It’s the sun,” He said, crossing his arms defensively, “It’s throwing off my sense of time.”

Sokka nodded like he understood, “Happens to everyone at first. You’ll get used to it.”

Zuko didn’t think so. “What are _you_ doing awake?” He asked.

“There’re no blackout curtains where I’m staying in Marge’s living room, so I thought I’d go on a walk, get out some of my restlessness.”

Zuko wanted to say _me too,_ but instead he replied, thoughtlessly, “I didn’t think you guys used blackout curtains.”

“What do you mean by ‘you guys’?” Sokka asked, voice sharp, and Zuko backtracked mentally, trying to figure out what he’d said wrong.

“I only meant, um, people who live here. In Barrow. Or wherever. I wasn’t trying to imply anything—”

“Relax. I get it.” Sokka laughed, softening again. He had a reassuring face, but his eyes made Zuko feel like Sokka could see through him, right down into his skin, “So, Jee called a few hours ago, said you chewed him out about my driving.”

“Oh.” _Shit_.

“Sorry about that. It really wasn’t his fault. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a professional driver, right?” Sokka was smiling, but he looked embarrassed, and Zuko felt lower than dirt.

“I just wasn’t expecting—we do things differently...in Houston.” He finished lamely.

“I bet.”

Zuko wrapped his arms tighter around himself as the wind picked up. Sokka must have noticed, because he considerately angled his body to block it. A pack of dogs started barking, high-pitched, in someone’s yard but otherwise they were alone on the street. 

“It’s been a long day.” Zuko said at last, more honest than he meant to be, “I might have—overreacted.”

“Hey, man. It’s okay.” Sokka said, and his eyes shifted to look directly at Zuko’s scar for the first time, “I know all about long days.”

Zuko barely resisted the urge to jerk his head away, and his discomfort must have shown, because Sokka quickly refocused his gaze elsewhere. It was definitely time for Zuko to make some excuse and go inside. He was only making a fool of himself out here, but the thought of staring at the walls for another three and a half hours until his alarm went off was more depressing than he could stand.

 “Is there—” He hesitated, fighting against his instincts, “Is there a CVS or something around here? I need to pick up some prescriptions tomorrow.”

“Yeah, there’s a pharmacy at the hospital. It’s not far; you can see it from here.” Sokka pointed across the lagoon to an indistinguishable group of buildings.

“Okay.” Zuko said anyway, “Thanks.”

“No problem. Happy to help.” Sokka said, and sounded like he meant it.

The dogs quit their barking, and in the silence that fell, all Zuko could hear was the rush of the wind in his ears and the faint creak of ice in the distance. He didn’t know why he was still here, what he was waiting for. Maybe he was waiting for Sokka to make excuses of his own and head out, but Sokka didn’t seem to be going anywhere. In fact, he'd just started digging around in the pocket of his parka for cigarettes and a lighter.

“D’you mind?” He asked when turning his back to the wind wasn’t enough to keep the lighter from flickering out.

In one of the universe’s many sick jokes, Zuko had always had luck with lighters. So he pushed aside his unease and leaned into the shelter of their shoulders and Sokka’s cupped hands, trying to ignore how close they were, how Sokka brushed against him, a barely-there line of heat. He flicked the lighter and held the steady flame up to the cigarette clenched between Sokka’s lips.

Sokka inhaled hard and the tobacco began to catch. He held the smoke in his lungs for a long second before releasing it. Zuko knew he needed to step away, but he couldn’t have moved even if he wanted to, riveted in place by the look in Sokka’s eyes.

He was— _god_ , he was gorgeous, skin shining copper in the slanted light, hair glistening oil-black against white fur.

Sokka licked his lips, cigarette forgotten between his fingers, and Zuko knew, in his gut, that something was about to happen. It would be so easy to close the distance between them and kiss Sokka right now, taste the smoke on his lips. Press into Sokka’s warmth and forget every bad thought he’d had today.

But then reason kicked in like a shock to his system and Zuko stepped away, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. The spell between them snapped like a thread. Sokka half-smiled, rueful, and took another drag of his cigarette, exhaling a plume of smoke into the air. He looked down at the ground, then at the sea, then at Zuko again.

“I was on my way to the beach when I ran into you,” He said, a non-sequitur.

“Okay, well, I should let you go—” Zuko started, and Sokka interrupted him, laughing.

“No, I mean, you should come with me. It’s real nice this time of night.”

Even though Zuko could see the beach very clearly from where he stood—and was completely uninterested in it—there was something about Sokka that made Zuko never want to say no. He struggled with it silently.

After a pause that lasted slightly too long, he said, “I should really go back inside, try and get some sleep.”

“Okay, yeah,” Sokka said, voice sounding a little forced, “That’s a good idea.” He waved goodbye and walked the way he came, away from the sea. Zuko scrubbed his hand over his face. He’d fucked this up.

“Wait!” Zuko called out, and Sokka turned around to face him, bright with hope, “I know it’s late and there probably aren’t any bars open, but I’d kill for a drink, if you wanted to join me.”

Sokka’s expression hardened, and Zuko could have kicked himself. Of couirse Sokka was going to turn him down. Of course he was.

“There aren’t any bars here,” Sokka said, which was not the answer Zuko was expecting. Sokka took a few steps back into hearing range, and answered Zuko's unspoken confusion, “It’s a damp town. You can order alcohol to be flown in, but you can’t buy it here.”

“So there’s no way to just go and get something to drink?” Zuko asked, thinking again about the lack of mini-bar in his room and the possibility he couldn't get an emergency prescription in the morning, “That’s bullshit." 

 “No, it’s not.” Sokka said, and flicked ash off the end of his cigarette in a curt, decisive gesture, “Goodnight.”

Zuko climbed the steps to the lobby, disgusted with himself and this fucking place, unable to watch Sokka’s retreating back a second time. So what if he was goddamn lonely? There were always Mai’s one-word texts and Uncle’s unsolicited advice if he really needed to reach out to somebody. Sokka was—no one. Not a friend. Not even someone he knew. 

When he got to his room, he checked the time (3:45 AM) and lay down, eyes closed in the near-dark, and let himself sink deep into the bed—a perpetual sensation of falling that was as close as he got to sleep on nights like this. His last fully coherent thought was that he’d been wrong before, when he thought he’d fucked up by letting Sokka walk away. He’d fucked up even worse by trying to get him to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man sorry about all the insomnia/cigarette talk


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wasn’t sure why he kept getting himself into these situations when they were clearly detrimental to his well-being. And yet, here he was, hoping (stupidly, secretly) that Sokka might come over and strike up a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long delay, and no epistles yet, but i've been in indian country the last few days and it got me thinking about this fic again

Unable to mark the passage of time by the incremental brightening of the sky because of the blackout curtains, Zuko was startled upright by his alarm, heart pounding, until he realized where the sound was coming from. He shut it off and lay back down, allowing himself a second to lie there and hate his life before he rolled out of bed and started his morning workout.

There was no complimentary breakfast, but the woman at the front desk directed him to—of all things—a Mexican restaurant attached to the hotel. Zuko balked at the idea of eating Mexican _here_ , in the northernmost city of the northernmost state of the continental US, when he so recently used to live only a few hours’ drive from the border, but he was hungry and needed to kill some time before trying to reach his doctor again, so he made his way to the restaurant, not expecting much.

Pepe’s North of the Border was bustling, and it took a while for him to be seated at a corner table against the wall. The room was loud and over-decorated with a mural, bright cut-paper banners, and more knick-knacks on shelves than Zuko’s sore eyes could fully take in. Through the windows, he could see that a dense white fog had fallen, just like yesterday, obscuring everything from view besides the indistinct shapes of passing cars.

He was a little surprised to find that most of the items on the breakfast menu were diner-style, which was reassuring, kind of. He didn't want to know what kind of flavorless glop would pass for salsa up here. When the waitress came by, he just asked for the breakfast special, figuring they couldn't get it very wrong. It turned out to be eggs, toast, sausage, and two refills of coffee. The portions were enormous, even by Texas standards, although the sausage tasted peculiar. He flagged down the waitress again, and when questioned, she told him it was reindeer meat, which, yeah. Welcome to Alaska. 

After he finished, he tried contacting his doctor again, but didn’t get through. Didn’t even get the secretary, just an automated message. So he called Jee instead.

“Bad news.” Jee said, and Zuko really shouldn’t have expected anything less, “All morning flights are cancelled until further notice because of the fog. If the sky clears in time, Rodney will be arriving on the 6 o’clock, but until then...”

Zuko took a deep breath before speaking, “We’ll just have to get started without him. Did you receive the environmental impact reports yet?”

“Not yet. I’ll get in touch with Charlie again.”

“Do that. In the meantime, I’m going to drop by crew camp and—”

Jee interrupted him, “Look, until Rodney gets in, there really isn’t anything to do. We have the meeting on Thursday under control, you just need to show up and say your piece, field a few questions. Nothing major. Why don't you relax a little, take a tour of Barrow or something, get to know the place.”

“Don’t tell me to relax.”

There was a pause, “Fair enough. But I still think you should take the tour. The locals will appreciate it. And maybe you’ll get a better appreciation of what we’re doing here, too.”

Zuko was about to argue that he had no shortage of appreciation for how vital SO Co.’s northern venture was, but he held himself back. If Jee wanted him to take the goddamn tour so bad, he’d do it. If it was terrible, he could always leave halfway through. And if it wasn't, well, then he’d know the enemy a little better.

“Think of it as research for your presentation,” Jee continued, echoing his thoughts, and Zuko sighed.

“Fine. Book me a spot on the next tour. But don't think I won't know who to blame if everything is not in order for the meeting on Thursday,” Zuko warned.

“Got it,” Jee said with poorly-concealed irritation, “I’ll call you back with the details when I have them.”

Zuko had finished another cup of coffee and paid for his half-eaten breakfast by the time Jee called him back to tell him that the tour started at noon and would be departing from the hotel lobby, which gave Zuko enough time to call his doctor once more, to no avail. He was starting to get very, very worried that he wouldn't be able to get an emergency prescription in time, so maybe it was a good thing he’d have something else to think about for the next few hours. 

There were a group of people already assembled in the lobby when Zuko joined them, ready if not entirely willing to go. After a few minutes, the receptionist stood up from her counter and announced that the tour was being pushed back an hour since the heavy fog had delayed the incoming flight from Anchorage. Zuko resented the wait and, worst of all, having to spend it on an uncomfortable couch in the lobby with his laptop balanced on his lap, refreshing his email every five minutes, hoping to get those reports from Jee. It was hard getting any kind of work done here, though, with all these people milling around and distracting him with the low hum of their chatter, so eventually he gave up and put his laptop back in his bag.

He then resorted to flipping through a few out-of-date Newsweek magazines he found on the coffee table until just after 1:30, when the tour guide finally appeared with three outdoorsy-looking couples and their luggage in tow. Then it was just a matter of waiting for them to drop their bags off in the luggage room, and the tour was finally, _finally_ able to start. Or, close enough. 

The tour guide made them all introduce themselves before they left the lobby, including where they had come from and why they were in Barrow. Zuko didn't miss the looks the group of scientists exchanged when he mumbled his intro, and it made him nervous, which in turn made him angry. Fuck them, it’s not like their minuscule research station up here would even exist without SO Co’s funding. The tour was obviously already off to a great start, and he fumed all he way to the parking lot, right up until he saw a dirty white van that looked so much like Sokka's that Zuko suddenly filled with dread and anticipation. 

Maybe he was there as the driver, or maybe he wasn't there for the tour at all, but they would still have to see each other, which would be—a problem. Definitely a problem. But it turned out that the van was not Sokka's, but actually belonged to the tour company, and smelled entirely different inside. Not like cigarettes at all. Zuko didn't know why that wasn't more satisfying. 

He made sure to sit in the last row of seats, the farthest away from the tour guide as he could get, and for good reason. The guide, a young community college student named Suki who drove very conservatively, which wouldn’t have seemed weird if he wasn’t comparing her to Sokka, kept up a lively dialogue with the other passengers, telling them what they were seeing out the dusty windows and answering their questions as she ferried them from place to place.

Zuko couldn’t even pretend to be interested. He was _so_ _bored._ Painfully, ridiculously bored. A kind of boredom he hadn’t really experienced since he moved back in with his father in his senior year of high school and stopped spending endless hours watching his uncle host and compete in Go tournaments. Zuko would bet anything that if Uncle was here right now he’d be having the time of his life. That thought was enough to warm him a little—metaphorically, _definitely_ not literally—as he followed the perky tour guide from the van to a tall whalebone arch overlooking the sea which was apparently a great photo op for everyone who was not Zuko.

Other highlights of the tour up until that point included the sea, a memorial stone by the sea, a series of palm trees made out of something called baleen, several massive whale skulls, the research station, a series of light blue trailers the guide called a community college, and a blue and yellow Astroturf football field.

“Home of the Whalers!” The tour guide exclaimed, and launched into an impassioned account of how the plastic field had come to be. Zuko wasn’t paying attention though, his gaze was focused on the low white cluster of buildings that made up SO Co’s crew camp just beyond. He recognized Jee’s red truck parked out front and contemplated ditching the tour right then and there to get back to work, whether or not Jee wanted him to. He’d known from the get-go that there was nothing to see in this dump, and the tour was wasting SO Co several hundred dollars trying to convince him otherwise. But then the tour guide was calling them all to the field to take a group photo and Zuko just…went with it. He could hate it all he wanted, angling his face so the scar might be confused with a shadow in the photo, refusing to fake a smile, but he always saw things through. It was just what he did.

Their final stop was the heritage museum, where the tour guide spent an excessively long time comparing and contrasting modern life in Barrow with what was displayed in the ethnographic exhibitions, throwing in plenty of personal anecdotes. The other people in the group were fascinated by her stories of traditional life, but Zuko couldn’t help thinking it sounded kind of shitty, living at the edge of the world like this—totally dependent on oil for their schools, plumbing, electricity, everything good that had happened in the past hundred years. 

As she walked them through the whaling and subsistence hunting exhibitions, he considered her more closely. She was intelligent, if a bit annoying, and he didn’t understand why more educated young people like her didn’t move away. There couldn’t be very many good jobs up here; he knew for a fact that SO Co preferred to hire its workers from outside the North Slope. He almost wanted to ask her, but he just couldn't find the right opportunity, and besides—maybe that was _too_ personal. 

They were given the chance to take a look around the so-called traditional room before leaving the museum, and ending the tour. Zuko was about 0.03 seconds away from heading out the exit and going back to the hotel when he caught sight of broad shoulders beneath a blue-and-white parka through the open door and froze. _Shit._ Zuko stood at the threshold, caught in indecision, until the rest of the tour began to push past and ended up drawing him along with them into the room, where the long, thin frame of a boat was hoisted off the floor on blocks like a car at the repair shop.

Sokka looked up at the sound of their entrance and greeted the group with a smile. It faded when he saw Zuko, but as Zuko walked passed, Sokka said in a very subdued voice, “Hey, what's up.”

Zuko didn't reply, didn’t think Sokka wanted him to.  He must have messed up more than he thought last night (this morning?), when he misinterpreted Sokka’s friendliness for something else and made an offer that could almost, if you squinted, seem like a come-on. He was only glad he hadn’t done anything more overt than inviting Sokka out for a drink, if this was the result. 

Their guide seemed (surprise, surprise) to know both Sokka and the man working with him, and tried to prompt the older man to explain what they were doing, but he just laughed and waved the suggestion away. So the guide turned her pleading eyes on Sokka, who pretended to resist until she swatted him playfully. It took him less than thirty seconds to capitulate, and Zuko knew what that meant—the smiles and easy familiarity—and he thought, yeah. Okay. That explains it. They're involved. 

The group gathered eagerly around the boat, with Zuko lagging somewhat behind. He didn't care, wasn't interested in it, he told himself. And he didn't want to make Sokka uncomfortable—that was a big part of it, too. He learned his lesson a long time ago about hitting on straight guys, and he knew it was best to stay away, especially with Suki _right there_ next to Sokka, nodding in encouragement as he cleared his throat and began. 

Uncomfortable or not, Sokka was an excellent public speaker, far better than Zuko. He was able to keep people listening even though what he was describing—replacing damaged wooden supports before stretching the seal skin cover back over the frame—was very technical. Maybe it was in the way he moved his hands, drawing pictures in the air. Or maybe it was his undisguised enthusiasm for the subject. It could also be the jokes he kept cracking, which got laughs even though Zuko didn't find them funny. 

By popular demand, Sokka went into the entire process of making a kayak. He described how earlier in the season, women had prepared the fresh sealskin for the kayak in that very room, which explained the lingering foul smell, then talked a bit about what it was like taking the boat out on a whale hunt and the advantages it had over modern boats, how silently and swiftly it moved through the water. Once he finished, the other people on the tour had a bunch of questions, which Sokka answered patiently in his slow, accented voice.

“So you’re actually going to use this for whale hunting? Isn’t it dangerous?” A woman in a North Face jacket and bright red scarf asked.

“There’s always a risk. But sealskin is strong and flexible, caribou sinew is durable, and the wooden frame is light. By hunting the way our ancestors have for thousands of years, we draw on their ancient knowledge to keep us safe,” Sokka paused, “What’s dangerous is the rotten spring ice.”

“What’s that?” A member of the non-visiting-scientist contingent asked, and Sokka explained that whale hunters rely on solid sheets of ice to form over the sea each fall and last late into the spring so they can set up hunting camps several miles offshore. Rotten ice is unpredictable. It's weak and decayed, easily fractured or melted away, and often unable to hold a human’s weight no matter how thick it appears. 

“Every year, there’s more and more rotten ice in the sea, and every year the ice sheets are melting earlier in the season. It’s a very dangerous situation for hunters, who can get stranded or drown. The elders don't always understand the ice anymore, so we often have to work without their guidance,” Sokka finished, looking grim.

“Would you consider that a sign of climate change?” One of the men asked. He’d introduced himself earlier as some kind of biologist.

“Yeah,” Sokka glanced briefly in Zuko’s direction, then away, “Yeah, I would.”

He cut short the Q&A after that, and went back to work on the boat. Zuko couldn’t help wondering if the abrupt shift in mood had something to do with his presence, and not just in a _I_ _really_ _shouldn't_ _have_ _asked_ _you_ _out_ kind of way. Maybe he was being paranoid, like Mai would say, and it had nothing to do with him at all. Climate change seemed to upset a lot of people when they talked about it, although if they just listened to the research they'd know it was a propagandistic lie meant to turn them against domestic energy resource development. But then there were all the visiting scientists, giving him their evil eye, and it just—it didn't _feel_ like paranoia, to him. 

There was no reason for Zuko to stick around, now that Sokka was finished talking and had resolutely turned his back on Zuko, and the whole group. But Zuko wandered around the workshop anyway, ignoring the possibility that he was being pathetic. It was only pathetic if he hoped Sokka would speak to him, which he didn’t. He knew Sokka wouldn’t. He just—he liked hearing Sokka talk to the older man, liked hearing their voices low and murmured, the words indistinguishable. Maybe they were speaking that other language, Inupiaq. Zuko liked watching Sokka move, all confident energy, as he measured lengths of wood without a ruler, only the span of his hands.

Zuko circled round to the other side of the kayak with a few of the other tour members, so he could keep seeing Sokka out of the corner of his eye. He realized it was actually was more pathetic this way, but he still didn't leave. He was unpleasantly reminded of his teenage years, lurking around the football field during practice just so he could see Jet from a distance, mind full of hope and fear as he wrestled with himself and his conscience and all his insecurities which told him no, of course Jet hadn’t been flirting. Which turned out to be the truth, or, well, kind of. True enough to ruin Zuko’s life for the next two years.

Sokka raised his head and Zuko flushed hot all over, thinking he’d been caught looking, but Sokka wasn’t looking at him. Rather, Sokka was looking _through_ him, eyes unfocused, before he made some marks in pencil on the length of wood he was holding. Zuko pretended to be very busy inspecting the tools strewn across the workbench, a mix of traditional blades and contemporary power drills.

He wasn’t sure why he kept getting himself into these situations when they were clearly detrimental to his well-being. And yet, here he was, hoping (stupidly, secretly) that Sokka might come over and strike up a conversation. No better than a freshman in high school.

Oh, fuck it. He was an adult now. It didn't have to be this way. 

“Hey, so, uh. Are you doing all of the measurements in your head?” Zuko asked and was met with silence. He realized he’d just interrupted whatever Sokka’s uncle had been saying, and they both were looking at him in surprise, “Sorry, I—” _No_ , don’t apologize, you idiot, “It’s very...impressive.”

“It’s not that hard,” Sokka said, but he failed at sounding dismissive. His uncle elbowed him, grinning, and Sokka grinned back, cheeks flushed red, and oh—oh god, he was gorgeous. This was bad. Very bad.

“Don’t be modest,” Sokka’s uncle chided, then turned to Zuko, “He was going go to college and be an engineer, weren’t you?” He elbowed his nephew again, and Sokka jostled him back, “He got accepted into MIT, full scholarship.”

“I wanted to go, yeah. But it didn’t work out,” Sokka met Zuko’s eyes briefly, an embarrassed smile still playing on his lips.

“Too bad,” Zuko said. He had no idea why he was volunteering any of this, mouth moving without his full permission, “I got a BS in Engineering at Texas A&M, but I still can’t do that kind of thing without a calculator, or some paper and a pencil, at least.”

“Yeah? But I thought you were an accountant,” Sokka said, and even though it wasn’t entirely accurate, Zuko was surprised he’d remembered.

“That came later,” Zuko replied, more sharply than he'd intended, and hoped Sokka would drop the subject, even if it meant the end if their conversation.

“Huh,” Sokka frowned slightly, like he was committing the statement to memory, and said, to Zuko's relief, “So, what do you think? Enjoying the tour?”

“I, uh—it’s, uh—” Zuko cast about for something to say that wasn’t a total lie, “It’s not what I’m used to. I mean, I’ve never seen snow in real life before.”

Sokka laughed, “Really?” Then he shook his head, “Oh, yeah. Houston guy. Guess I forgot.”

At that, the older man looked over at Zuko, eyebrows raised like he recognized him now, and Zuko tensed, unsure what to expect.

“Aren’t you gonna introduce me?” The man asked, and stretched out a hand to Zuko anyway, “Bato Kinalik. This one’s uncle.”

There was definitely a family resemblance, now that Zuko was looking. They were both tall and dark, with a certain set to their chins, but Bato was wiry where Sokka was muscular.

“Zuko Nakayama.”

“So you’re that big-shot oil guy from Texas,” Bato said, “I heard someone like that was in town.”

 “Yes. That’s me,” Zuko wasn’t sure if he should be flattered. Probably not. 

“Huh. I thought you were—” He laughed, “I thought you were gonna be some kind of cowboy type.”

Zuko couldn’t count how many times he’d heard some variation on this theme, when what they really meant was that they were surprised he wasn’t white. He opened his mouth to say something biting and impolite in response, but Sokka was the one who spoke up first.

“Texas isn’t only white guys in pickup trucks, you know.” He told his uncle good-naturedly. 

“How would you know? You’ve never been there,” Bato returned, but they were in the realm of joking now, the situation diffused, and all of Zuko’s sudden anger had nowhere to go.

“Well, neither have you,” Sokka made a very immature face at his uncle, and turned to Zuko, “Tour’s over, right? You got anything to do after this?”

“No, I don’t,” Zuko replied automatically, and wanted to kick himself. He had a ton of things to do after this, as a matter of fact. He needed to check his email again to see if that report had been sent in to him yet, then call Jee and chew him out for the delay, and find out if Rodney’s flight had gotten in yet, which would determine his schedule for the rest of the afternoon. But Sokka was looking at him bright and warm and Zuko would do pretty much anything to make it last a little longer.

“Cool," He said, sounding pleased, "I could take you around to a few neat places in Barrow that aren’t in the tour, if you want. Maybe grab a bite to eat while we’re at it? Boat repair is hungry work.”

Sokka’s uncle snorted in amusement and walked away, muttering in Inupiaq. Sokka waved him off, responding in the universal tone of _please shut up_ , and turned back to Zuko, “Well, what do you say?”

Zuko wanted to reply but he was absolutely and utterly confused. Just a few minutes ago it was like he didn't even exist, and now Sokka was talking to him, friendly again, like he had somehow _not_ made things weird last night, when clearly he had, unless he actually hadn’t, and oh, fuck, he was taking too much time to answer. 

“That would, um—” He started, but the buzzing of his phone in his jacket pocket interrupted him. He pulled it out, annoyed, and saw it was his doctor in Anchorage, _thank god_. Even if he did have the worst timing. 

“I have to take this,” He said with a pang of useless regret, and exited the building to stand in the dreary cold and talk in private, “Hello, Dr. Gupta. Yes, I tried reaching you earlier—”

By the time he’d explained the situation to his doctor, and Gupta promised to fax the pharmacy a new prescription within the hour, Zuko knew his window of opportunity for taking Sokka up on his offer had passed. He peered through the door window into the traditional room anyway and saw Sokka was back at work on the boat. The rest of the tour members had already dispersed to the giftshop and only Suki was left, standing so close to Sokka that their shoulders touched. Zuko could have gone back in and made his (awkward) apologies, but what was the point? So he walked back to the hotel on his own, deciding to consider the phone call a sign that it was time for him to get over himself and get back to work as well. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So much for making the best of a bad situation.

Rodney flew into Barrow later that evening, and Zuko spent the next two days compiling something that resembled a coherent presentation from the environmental impact report he had (finally) received, the oil spill recovery protocol handbook, and his own spreadsheets. He made sure to spend most of his time at the SO Co crew camp, working at the desk Jee had arranged for him in trailer 2, so as to avoid seeing Sokka again—or anyone else, for that matter. Zuko was tired of people, of making nice, of this cold, grey wasteland.

At least he was sleeping better. He’d gotten back to an average of four hours a night, which was enough to keep him functional, but not enough to give him the energy for small talk in the canteen during lunch. Fortunately, Jee and the rest of the crew seemed more than happy to leave Zuko alone, and Zuko preferred to eat at his desk anyway.

His office had a small, dirty window looking out over the sea and when he needed to give his eyes a break from staring at the computer screen, he watched the immobile ice. It was kind of bunched up by the shore, but mostly flat and featureless as it extended far into the sea, the same greyish color as the sky. There were faint tracks going across it, too. Human, he guessed. The thought of people walking out onto the ice reminded him of Sokka, of course, and the look on his face when he talked about hunters drowning, like a great and terrible fear was called up inside him with just those words.

Zuko looked away from the window. Maybe he’d been kind of an asshole for blowing Sokka off like that, without even the decency to go back into the room to say _no thanks_ , and _goodbye_. Sokka might have been waiting for him. But no, more likely he was preoccupied by his girlfriend Suki, and forgot all about the invitation. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that Sokka was obviously trying to be friends, for whatever reason, and Zuko didn’t know why he couldn’t try too, why it was so hard for him to look into Sokka’s blue eyes and be anything but a coward.

He went back to his laptop and his godawful powerpoint presentation, but the break hadn’t helped any. He still had a headache and he still felt bad—guilty, almost—and unable to talk himself out of it. Next time he should just say yes. Get his phone number even, like a normal person would. Mai said they could see whoever they wanted while they were apart, so long as they talked about it, so long as it didn’t get serious, and this wouldn’t even count, if it was just as friends.

On Wednesday evening he had an unavoidable skype session with his uncle. He tried to put it off, saying his was too busy (which was not a lie), but Iroh was just as persistent as Zuko was sometimes, and eventually Zuko gave in. He did, however, use the slow hotel wifi as an excuse to not put his camera on, so his uncle couldn’t see him and make any comments about how tired and stressed out he looked.

“How is it going up there, nephew?” Uncle Iroh asked, “Have you tried any maktak yet?”

Zuko vaguely remembered Suki mentioning it, and his own disgusted reaction, but not what it was.

“I’m not here for a culinary tour of Alaska, Uncle,” He said, brushing the issue aside, “I have an important presentation to give to the stakeholders tomorrow, and after that, another meeting with the Alaskan Whaling Commission, and then another with the Mayor, and then I can go ho—I can go back to Anchorage.”

“So everything is going well, then?” Uncle Iroh said, sounding skeptical. It was a tone Zuko hated, it always managed to make him feel transparent as glass.

“Everything is going _fine_.”

“And how are you sleeping?”

Zuko groaned, “Fine. I said fine.”

“You know your physician was concerned about the effect twenty-four hour sunlight would have on your circadian rhythms,” Uncle Iroh said sensibly, and Zuko couldn’t remember why he thought it was a good idea to allow Dr. Gupta to share medical information with his uncle.

“Well, it’s not a problem. No effect. Meds are working fine now that I’ve got them.”

Iroh sighed, “One more fine and I won’t believe it.”

Zuko stayed silent, robbed of his only answer. There was no easy way to describe what it felt like to close the curtains against a bright, hazy midnight sky after another shitty day spent surrounded by idiots, and lie in bed as the Ambien pulled him under and kept him incapacitated for eight or more hours even if he only actually slept for three or four. How hard it was to get himself up in the morning and coax his brain back online with coffee and exercise, only to face the whole thing over again. His uncle already knew the basics, it was only the details that changed: the place, the time.

“I think I—” Zuko said, after the silence got to be too much, “There’s this guy. He offered to show me around Barrow while I’m here. I think I might take him up on it sometime.”

“That’s great!” His uncle sounded far too pleased, “You’re making friends already.”

“It’s not—he’s not a _friend_ , just. He offered, so…”

“I knew you would start making the best of things eventually,” Iroh said, undeterred, and Zuko realized that maybe that's what he was doing. Thinking of it like that made him slightly uncomfortable, and not just in a when-did-I-start-listening-to-my-uncle way. He didn’t want to act like he was going to be in Alaska for more than a couple months, because he _wasn’t_.

“Things here are good,” Iroh continued, “We hosted another tea ceremony at the Jasmine Dragon last week, and it was very well attended. What a lot of preparation went into it, though!” He laughed, “I think I’m getting too old to keep doing these events, I should find someone young and tech-savvy to organize them for me.”

“I’m sure you did well,” Zuko said, homesick suddenly for Iroh's little apartment above the tea house where he'd lived the last few years of high school. The happiest years of his life. 

“Hopefully next time you’ll be able to come to Austin and see for yourself. We’re still having our regular music nights too, you know, and I remember a certain young lady who really enjoyed your playing...” Uncle Iroh said, and Zuko was doubly glad he didn’t have the video on so Iroh couldn’t see his face contort.

“Come on, Uncle. Mai and I have been dating for almost three years. I don’t need you to set me up with any of your customers,” He didn’t mention the other, obvious impediment—that he was currently over 3,000 miles away.

“Three years? Congratulations, Nephew,” He said, sounding very proud, “How is she doing? Have you spoken to her recently?”

And Zuko was ashamed to admit he had not. They weren’t fighting or anything, or even growing apart, they just—didn’t need to stay in touch all the time. It’s not who they were.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, even after he and his uncle said their goodbyes and ended the call. He missed her a lot. And even though he wasn’t great at expressing how he felt most of the time, he assumed she knew anyway, just like he was mostly certain she felt the same. Maybe he was wrong, though, and she’d been waiting for him to say something. Maybe they _were_ growing apart.

The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him, which was just great, since it wasn’t like he was running out of things to worry about. There was the stakeholders meeting the next day of course. And Mark was having some kind of family emergency, which meant Jee had to learn Mark's presentation on job creation and subcontractors in one day. And then, to make things worse, Vice-President Zhao was insisting they record the whole thing so he could review it later, since he was in DC this week buddying up to his friends in the Department of the Interior and was “too busy” to attend the meeting himself.

Not that Zuko minded. He didn’t want that sleazy asshole anywhere near him. It was just that Zuko came off even worse on camera than he did in person, and he wasn’t great in person even on a good day.

The whole thing was a nightmare.

Zuko spent the day of the meeting gross with sweat and shaking from nerves (and four or five, he couldn’t remember, cups of coffee). He got to the conference room in City Hall several hours ahead of time to make sure everything was set up properly, and that he had access to what he needed. That took about fifteen minutes. He spent the rest of the time pacing back and forth as he ran through a series of increasingly worst-case scenarios.

T minus one hour, and he going out of his mind. The mayor had just popped in and told him she was _very much looking forward to hearing your presentation._ Zuko practically tripped over his own tongue trying to say something back, and she _laughed_ , like it was amusing to her or something. At least none of the other SO Co guys were there to see it, since they were still at lunch. Jee had grudgingly invited him to join them, but he had declined, too stressed to eat.

Once the mayor left, he finally caved in and gave Mai a call. He really needed to hear a familiar voice right now.

The phone rang for almost a full minute before she picked up, and her brusque greeting filled him with a sense of profound relief. 

“This is Mai, what do you want?” She said, bored and dry and perfect.

“Hey, it’s me. Zuko.”

“That sounds like an issue for the helpdesk to resolve,” She replied, and he was thrown, wondering if she hadn’t heard him properly.

“It’s Zuko,” He said again, a little louder, “You know, your boyfriend?”

“Well, did you try refreshing the page?” She continued, and it made Zuko uneasy.

“What’s going on, Mai? Is everything alright?”

“Hang on, let me pull up your account,” There was the sound of movement and muffled voices, she must have her hand over the receiver. Then he heard the clack of her heels as she walked down the hallway. He could picture exactly where she was in the building. A door closed. They were in her office now—quiet, secluded, and humming with equipment. In the early days of their relationship, he used to join her down there sometimes during their lunch break so they could sit and talk privately, back when all they wanted to do was spend time with each other.

“Couldn’t talk in the break room,” She said, sounding slightly more relaxed, “Mr. Nakayama was there.”

“What the hell is he doing in the IT Department?” Zuko asked, instantly uncomfortable.

“One of our servers got hacked yesterday. He just got finished making sure we know the consequences if it ever happens again,” Mai said it like she was unmoved by Ozai’s presumably thinly-veiled threats, but Zuko knew better. Ozai scared the shit out of everybody.

“Did you get the server fixed?” He asked, as much to distract himself as for her.

“Of course I did, it was easy,” She said, "I was just leaving the office yesterday evening when I got an alert that there was an attack on our email server by one of those hacktivist groups. They leave their signature on everything, it's so predictable. They managed to break into a few of the encrypted inboxes, including Mr. Nakayama’s, but they didn't anticipate that there would be a second level of encryption on the messages themselves—" She kept going for a while, and Zuko listened intently, grateful for the subtle rise and fall of her voice, the familiarity of it all. 

“So it worked, they couldn’t read the emails?” Zuko said once Mai had given him the full story. He always liked it when Mai talked to him about her job. Even though she claimed to find it painfully dull most days, it was still more exciting than the life of a financial analyst.

“Oh yes, it worked,” She laughed, a throaty sound, “Hackers are so...uncreative these days.”

“Compared to you,” Zuko was unabashedly proud of her achievements, even though he could hear her eye-roll over the phone.

“Anyway,” She said, “What’s up with you? Why’d you call?”

Zuko shut his eyes for a moment against the buzzing florescent lights, all his anxiety rushing back, “I have a major presentation coming up in an hour that could determine whether or not I come back to Houston next month. But I’m so under-prepared and it’s not even my fault. You won’t believe how fucking incompetent people are up here. They didn’t get all the materials to me on time, so I—” He broke off, “I’m really freaking out, Mai.”

“I can tell.”

“I don’t want to stay in Alaska for the rest of my life. I don’t want to fuck this up, and I’m going to, I know I’m going to.”

“You’re not going to fuck up,” She said calmly, and Zuko forced himself to breathe, “You always think you will and things always turn out fine.”

That wasn’t true. He appreciated the sentiment, but.

“You didn’t know me, before,” He said quietly, almost in a whisper, “Before the—the whole thing with my father. I thought everything was going to turn out alright and I was wrong.”

“That was one time.”

He shook his head, because how could she _know_ , she wasn’t _there_ , then realized she couldn’t see him through the phone, “No, it’s what always happens to me.”

Mai sighed, “Don’t be so over-dramatic, Zuko. I know you’re worried, but how much do you want to bet that even if you do mess up, no one will notice?”

He took another deep breath, fingers clenching tight around his phone, and decided to let the issue go before it became an argument, “Okay, yeah. I guess you’re right.”

“Good,” She sounded distracted, “I need to go back now, but I’m sure you’ll do great.”

“Okay,” He wasn’t ready for the conversation to be over, but she was at work and he couldn’t stop her from leaving, so he said, a little desperately, “Love you.”

“You too,” She replied, and hung up.

Zuko slumped forward in his chair and rubbed his eyes until they blurred.

He had hoped that talking to Mai would help, but all it seemed to do was make him more untethered than before. When Rodney came in to double-check the video equipment, Zuko snapped at him, even though he’d asked Rodney to do it. Rodney wasn’t the problem, anyway.

Zuko didn’t like being angry with Mai. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t get it, get him, and he wished it didn’t matter so much to him whether she did.

It was just—he was going crazy up here, spending every night alone, working late in his hotel room. None of which was Mai’s responsibility to fix. She’d made it clear a long, long time ago that she wasn’t going to, even if he asked. Even if he begged her.

 _Your life choices are your own,_ she’d said. _If you’re not happy with something, change it._

So that’s what he was going to do. If he got through this meeting alright, he’d accept Sokka’s next invitation, whatever it might be. Sokka could take him out to dinner at that fake Mexican restaurant, as _friends_ , and introduce him to the exciting world of kayak repair or whatever. It wouldn’t be the same as sitting on his couch with Mai when she came over and splitting a bottle of wine while they watched those experimental French films she liked so much, but it would be something.

People started to congregate in the atrium, chatting and helping themselves coffee and tea from the carafes in the kitchen. Zuko stayed in the conference room and checked over his materials one last time. He felt like his tie was choking him, but he didn’t want to loosen it and risk looking unprofessional.

“Heads up,” Jee said, joining him, “Mayor’s on her way.”

“Got it,” He took a deep breath and tried to smile when Mayor Kiliak walked in with several vaguely-familiar members of local government in tow. It probably came out more like a grimace.

There was room for twenty-five people around the table, and now that the Mayor had arrived, seats were filling up fast. Zuko had been briefed on who was coming ahead of time, but couldn’t connect names to the faces.

“Since you’re new here, I figure we go around the room and do a round of introductions before we get started,” Jee said.

“That'll take too much time," Zuko said, "Just point out the major players to me now." 

Jee grumbled about it, but took a seat next to Zuko anyway, and gave some details about each person who came into the conference room. There were community elders, biologists from the field station, representatives of various native corporations, and a journalist from the Alaska Times.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Zuko asked, indicating the reporter.

“No. We’re on good terms with him—his boss runs a lot of pro-oil editorials,” Jee said. Even so, Zuko had a lot of bad experiences with journalists, and it set him on edge.

A few members of the Department of Wildlife Management filed in, one of whom Zuko recognized from his first day here—the woman Sokka had spent so much time talking to. She was in the middle of an animated conversation with her colleagues about a seal they’d helped some hunters butcher earlier that day, and Zuko noticed there was a still a smear of blood high on her cheek.

Jee must have seen it too, because he laughed and said, somewhat unkindly, “Looks like you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.”

Zuko glared at him, marking it down as another reason to try and get Jee replaced, but didn’t reply. All disrespect aside, it was true.

There were only a few chairs empty around the table, and the last stragglers were coming in—mostly captains from the Alaskan Whaling Commission.

“Alright, so that’s Albert Nagooyuk, and Tom Mitchford,” Jee said in an undertone, “And that’s Sokka Kinalik, but you know him already.”

Jee might have said a few more names after that, but Zuko didn’t hear them.

Sokka cleaned up well, was his first thought—black jeans and a blue sweatshirt with the words Kinalik Crew in white letters on the front, hair tied up neatly. His second thought was that Sokka wasn’t supposed to be here. Zuko never saw him on any of the lists, and Sokka never said anything about going to the meeting or being a whaling captain, although maybe if Zuko had gotten his shit together enough to actually talk to him, he might have.

Zuko watched him as he moved through the room with all the confidence of someone who knew he belonged, greeting the elders first, then making his way over to his friends in the Department of Wildlife. He shot Zuko a brief, neutral glance before going to sit down at the far end of the conference table next to the president of the whaling commission. Aside from Zuko, Sokka was the youngest person in the room by a decent margin, and Zuko wondered what that meant, if anything.

“What’s he doing here?” Zuko asked Jee, trying not to be obvious, “Sokka, I mean. He didn’t mention he was a whaling captain.”

“He’s not. Or at least, not officially. He’s here in place of his father, Hakoda, from Point Laity. You remember, we talked about him,” Jee said, trying to jog Zuko’s memory, and oh. Oh shit. Now Zuko knew exactly who he was.

“Point Laity is the village that opposes all offshore drilling, isn’t it?” Zuko confirmed. 

“Yup. And Hakoda was one of the whalers involved in the class action lawsuit against SO Co in 2010,” Jee grinned humorlessly, “Welcome to the front lines, Mr. Nakayama.”

Zuko tried to get in the right headspace as he waited for Rodney and Jee to finish passing out the info packets, but he was shaken and having trouble focusing. He felt Sokka’s eyes on him, still neutral and unreadable, but refused to look up and meet them. He hated how easily he’d been fooled by Sokka’s easy smile and the hopeful turn of his voice, hated the crushing disappointment he felt when he realized it was all a trap.

He’d known all along that this was how the oil business worked. He shouldn’t have thought for a moment that he would be safe from it here. All the stories he’d heard from the Anchorage office came back to him now, about rival oil companies and anti-oil activist groups using whatever means possible—spying, sabotage, bribery—to get what they wanted. He should have expected this. He should have been more careful. Who knows what kind of shit he might have let slip, thinking Sokka was, what, _interested_ in him?

Not fucking likely.

Zuko went through his presentation on autopilot, outlining SO Co’s plans for that summer and making the usual assurances that they were doing their utmost to reduce any impact on the environment. It wasn’t his best, not that he really _had_ a best, but it wasn’t bad either, and by the end Zuko was feeling pretty confident that there would be nothing humiliating for Zhao to hold over his head later.

Zuko clicked forward to his last slide, a list of references, and sat back down, holding onto the armrests of his chair like a lifeline, “Any questions?” He asked, praying there were none. Predictably, nearly every hand in the room went up.

The first few questions were easy. He explained to one of the elders, a tiny toothless man in a huge black windbreaker, that contrary to popular opinion, the discharge of drill cuttings into the ocean would not create “dead zones” on the ocean floor. He reassured the whaling captains that the noise of seismic testing and drilling would have only temporary and insignificant effects on the bowhead whale migration. He told the men sitting with the mayor that with current crude oil prices at over $100 per barrel, this drill season was the first step in a decades-long process that would potentially yield millions of dollars in profits.

The conversation derailed for a while into speculation about whether SO Co would find enough oil under the Chukchi Sea shelf to keep all the pump stations along the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline open, and Zuko assumed they were finished with the Q&A. He signaled for Jee to take over and give his short presentation. Jee had just risen out of his seat when one of the biologists broke through the noise, “Excuse me, Mr. Nakayama. Before we move on, I have a final question.”

“Go ahead,” Zuko said, with the distinct feeling that he was going to regret this. She pulled out a thick binder and started flipping through.

“In your presentation, you failed to discuss the results of the oil spill recovery equipment tests conducted last summer. Could you please do so?”

Zuko was completely blanking out—he didn’t have the information with him and couldn’t remember any of it off the top of his head—but miraculously, Jee had thought to bring a copy of the report, so Zuko could fumble through an answer, quoting directly from the text. He looked up, and saw a strange look on the biologist’s face, like she was about to move in for the kill.

“And these tests were performed off the coast of Seattle under ideal conditions, if I’m not mistaken.”

“That is correct,” Zuko replied unwillingly.

“What about testing in arctic conditions? Has there been any?”

So that was her game. Jee had warned him that people got pretty hung up on how unique, etc., the climate was in Alaska, and Zuko was tired of it already.

“It wasn’t deemed necessary. We know the equipment will work. Our engineers and technicians have decades of experience working in Arctic conditions, and our primary oil spill recovery subcontractor is based out of Prudhoe Bay." A fact which Jee would have covered, if this scientist would just shut up. 

“Then how do you explain the inadequacies of the response plan?" She asked, "An independent trial conducted in Norway shows that once 30% of the sea is covered in ice, oil can’t be collected on the surface anymore, which means it gets trapped under the ice until the following summer, by which point it could have spread into the protected shoals just north of SO Co’s lease plots, causing untold destruction to the fragile undersea ecosystem,” She took an article from her binder and passed it up the table to him.

“Now really isn’t the time to—” Zuko started, but she talked over him.

“Secondly, SO Co’s backup plan of burning the oil on the surface will not only produce harmful emissions, but doesn’t work in extreme weather conditions such as those found in the Chukchi Sea from October to June. My colleagues and I strongly recommend that no drilling takes place until the equipment has been sufficiently tested and the oil spill response plan tailored to take new findings into account,” She pulled out two more articles and passed them up.

Zuko set the articles aside without reading them and tried to gather his thoughts. The room was buzzing with whispered conversations, and he felt flustered and panicky. He didn’t know how to rise to meet her challenge in a way that would guarantee he won, and all his instincts told him to shut the conversation down before it got out of control.

“The Sozin Oil Company appreciates your dedication to Arctic research,” He eventually said in what was, for him, a measured voice, “But we will not be developing a new response plan in time for July’s drill season.”

“That’s hardly an answer, Mr. Nakayama,” The biologist said, and Zuko sighed impatiently.

“Alright, okay,” He pushed his anger down, “You want the long answer? Fine. Here’s the situation as it stands. The Sozin Oil Company has prepared for every worst-case scenario to ensure the safety of our crew and the environment. Our oil spill recovery equipment and protocols exceed the government’s highest standards. As everyone in the oil business knows, it’s nearly impossible to get the federal government’s approval for anything. SO Co has worked very hard to make this season happen and we’re not going to let this opportunity go to waste just because there’s a one-in-a-million chance of something going wrong. SO Co has an excellent track record in environmental responsibility, but the bottom line is that we need to make money or the whole project gets put on hold, and I don’t think anyone here wants that.”

“Bullshit,” Someone muttered further down the table, and Zuko’s head jerked in the direction of the voice.

“Excuse me?” He asked sharply, scanning the row of brown and white faces.

“I said, that’s bullshit,” It was Sokka, oh god, of course it was, and he looked _pissed_ , “What excellent track record? Last I heard, SO Co was still paying reparations for the North Sea oil spills in 2005 and 2009. Why isn’t that in any of your newsletters? While SO Co was busy saying no problem, everything’s fine, thousands of birds and seal were washing up on shore dead. If that happened here, it would ruin us.”

“There is not going to be an oil spill,” Zuko bit out, frustrated at Sokka for derailing the whole meeting, “We’re only drilling two exploratory wells. There’s no guarantee we’ll even hit oil this season, or the next, or even in the next five years. What’s the point of wasting _more_ money, more time, and more effort developing a whole new response plan just for that?" 

“A waste of money?” Sokka said, furious now, and the noise level in the room jumped as people started to grow agitated, “Did you seriously just—shit. I don’t even know where to start. This isn’t only an ecological issue. The animals we hunt in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas have sustained and nourished our people for over ten thousand years. Without them, we lose our main source of food, our way of life, our culture, _everything_. I don’t want to part of the generation that sees that happen just because a few extra precautions might cut into SO Co’s profits.”

“I thought I made it clear those precautions are unnecessary—”

“How about you let us tell you what’s necessary or not?” Sokka said loudly. All eyes in the room were focused on the two of them with rapt attention, “This is our ocean and we know it best. If you think you can just come in without doing a trial run to make sure the equipment even works up here, and we’re going to go along with it, you’re wrong.”

“What the hell are you going to do to stop us?” Zuko said, ignoring Jee’s frantic gestures to abort.

“I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” Sokka said, and the room erupted into chaos, people shouting, coming out of their seats. The reporter was scribbling frantically in his little notepad, and Zuko realized with dawning horror that he’d fucked himself, fucked all of them, 

Jee scowled at Zuko, and got to his feet, yelling uselessly, “Settle down, everyone.”

“Let the man speak,” The mayor said firmly, her voice cutting through the noise, and people started to quiet, “There will plenty of time to discuss later. I want to hear everything they have to say.” 

“Thank you, Arlene,” Jee said gratefully, and continued, “I understand these are contentious issues, but this is not the last public meeting we’ll be holding, so if you have anything else to say, please save it. The next meeting is in two weeks, where I promise we will address your concerns,” He glanced over at Rodney, who nodded, “Now, I know there was more on the agenda for today but I think it’s best we call this session to a close. I hope to see all of you next time.”

With much reluctance and residual anger, everyone filed out of the room, and the roar of conversation receded into the atrium and out the door.

Jee turned to Zuko and opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider, then reconsidered again. It looked like he was on the verge of making some comment about how awful Zuko was at his job, but Zuko really, really didn’t want to hear it, so he spoke before Jee could.

“Whose brilliant idea was it to have public hearings with the stakeholders anyway?” 

“Well,” Rodney stepped in, “It’s SO Co’s policy. All community members have the right to hear our plans and voice their concerns. I thought—correct me if I’m wrong—but I thought that’s why you were transferred to Alaska. So you could run the meetings and public hearings.”

“I don’t know why I was transferred here,” Zuko blurted out, too honest, and the other guys just stared at him, “I mean, I don’t know the _exact_ reason. But this—it’s—it’s one part of it, yes.”

Jee groaned, “Then I hope you know that this was an unmitigated disaster, Mr. Nakayama,” He waved his hand at the empty table, “Public opinion _matters_. Who knows how much of our work you’ve just undone?”

“Hey, now,” Rodney frowned, voice still cautious, “The first stakeholders meeting is always rough. We have a closed meeting with the Alaskan Whaling Comission on Saturday, so we can deal with Mr. Kinalik’s concerns then, and I’ll handle the folks at the research station, I’m friends with the head scientist there. Jee, you can talk to the reporter about what’s going into that article. We’ll be back on track again soon.”

Jee nodded tightly, and started packing up the laptop and projector. Zuko knew he should stay and help, then catch a ride with them, but he didn’t want to spend another second in that room, so he said, “Right, well, if you don’t need me anymore, I’m going back to the hotel,” and left before anyone could complain.

Not everyone had cleared out of the atrium yet, so Zuko put on a blank stare and pushed through them to the door. Outside, in the parking lot, Sokka was smoking a cigarette and talking very intently in Inupiaq to someone on the phone. When he saw Zuko, he clenched his jaw and turned away, apparently unable to even look at him.

So much for making the best of a bad situation.

The wind was harsh, whipping his hair into his face despite his hood, and the walk back to the hotel was longer than he remembered. By the time he got to the lobby, his face was numb and his fingers and toes hurt from the cold. Fucking Alaskan weather.

There were two missed calls from his father’s private number on his phone, and he knew what that meant. Ozai wanted an update, and Zuko was going to have to give it. He wanted to put it off, pretend he hadn’t seen the calls, just for long enough to take a shower and get his hands to stop shaking, but Ozai didn’t like being kept waiting.

“Hello, uh—Mr. Nakayama,” Zuko said, voice stuck in his throat, and sat down on the edge of the bed, “You called?”

“What could you possibly have been doing that was so important you couldn’t answer your phone?” Ozai asked, but didn’t wait for Zuko to splutter out an answer, “There’s been an emergency and you’re needed back in Anchorage right away.”

That was—not what Zuko was expecting, “Why?”

“Zhao was arrested last night in DC on trumped-up charges of assault and battery. We’ve got him the best lawyer in DC and we’re going to fight this, but he has been suspended from his duties as Vice-President until the matter is settled. I’m putting you in charge of the Alaska branch until then.”

Zuko was silent with shock, all the air knocked out of his lungs.

“If you don’t feel like you’re up to the task, I can always find someone else to do it,” Ozai continued, and while Zuko definitely did not feel up to the task, didn't think he deserved it either, he wasn’t about to say so—this was an honor, a _privilege_ , and turning it down would only make his father think worse of him. 

“N-no, of course I’m—yes, I’ll do it,” He said, and took a deep, shuddering breath, “I’ll get a flight out first thing tomorrow.”

“Just be aware that for the next few weeks, the reputation of our company is in your hands. Everyone in the oil industry will be watching you,” Ozai said, and Zuko felt light-headed with fear, “So if you make any mistakes…”

Zuko was aware of that. So, so aware. He needed to make sure Jee ran damage control about what happened today, or else everyone was going to know just how unfit Zuko was to lead the Alaska venture and he’d be screwed. The press would be all over him, and Ozai would—Ozai would—

“You, um. You don’t want to know how the presentation went today?” Zuko asked, not sure whether he wanted his father to say yes or no. 

“No, I don’t care about that,” Ozai said dismissively, “Just get back to Anchorage and try to come up with some kind of statement for the announcement on Monday.”

“Yeah, okay, got it,” Zuko said, voice kind of faint, and listened as the other line went dead without a goodbye.

He lay back on the bed, heart racing. His stomach was in knots and he was nearly certain he was going to be sick. He leaned over the side and coughed a few times, bringing up spit and nothing else—thank god he hadn’t eaten lunch. He waited until he was feeling slightly more settled before going to take a shower and scalding all the cold, shivering dread out of his skin, even if he couldn’t do the same with his mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and the angst goes on and on and on


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko would make a lot of bad decisions just to have someone look at him like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the long radio silence! i know it's been a while but i'm not giving up on any of my fics - so don't worry, all you lovely people who read, comment & kudos'd <3 yr support gets me through

SO Co had a driver waiting for Zuko at the arrivals lounge in Anchorage, some middle-aged white man in a company SUV who communicated entirely in monosyllables during the ride back to Zuko’s apartment. It was for the best. Zuko probably wouldn’t have been able to keep up his side of a conversation even if he’d wanted to, too overwhelmed by his promotion and/or death sentence. 

Walking into his apartment after a week away, he was struck by how empty and bare it was. He already knew it was, of course. He hadn’t brought a lot of stuff with him from Houston. But right now what he really wanted was to be _home_ , wherever that may be, and not in an apartment that felt like it belonged to someone else’s life. Zuko dumped his luggage in the bedroom and hung up his suit jacket in the small, half-empty closet.

The last time he’d been somewhere like that - somewhere he felt at ease - must have been in Iroh’s apartment in Austin, where the shelves were cluttered with knickknacks and something delicious was always cooking in the kitchen. Iroh had a particularly comfortable chair in the living room that Zuko used to curl up in when he couldn’t sleep at night. He’d turn on a lamp and read one of his uncle’s books on philosophy or history or poetry until his eyes grew heavy or the sun rose, whichever came first. Those were good days, although they hadn’t seemed so at the time.

Zuko filled his electric kettle and turned it on, then set up his laptop on the kitchen table while waiting for the water to boil. He only had three types of tea in the apartment - peppermint, for nausea, black, for when he ran out of coffee, and jasmine. That one was a gift from his uncle, and it tended to made him feel homesick when he brewed it, which was a feeling he usually tried to avoid. But tonight was a special occasion, if there ever was one. And he was feeling homesick already, kind of.

With a cup of tea warming up the palms of his hands and fragrant steam curling through the chilly air, he braced himself for the long night ahead of him. 

He called Jee a couple times, but no one picked up, so he moved on to calling his father, with similar results. It was so typical, and just as frustrating as always. Zuko needed to know what Zhao had done so he wouldn’t be caught unprepared in case reporters asked about it, which they absolutely would. More importantly, he needed to know what to put in his statement.

Really, Zuko thought, hanging up right as he reached his father’s voicemail for the umpteenth time, what was the point of even having a PR department if they still made you write your own statements for the press?

With no new information to work with, he was forced to compose some vague but painstaking paragraph along the lines of _honored by this opportunity_ and _will do my best to ensure a smooth transition_ and _confident that Zhao will return to work soon_ even though he felt like a liar as he wrote it.

Privately, he hoped whatever Zhao had done was awful enough for him to be gone for good. It probably wasn’t. As far as Zuko knew, nothing had stood in the way of Zhao’s career once he caught Ozai’s attention, but still. No one achieved that kind of success without some skeletons in their closet. It was possible that Zuko was just biased, though - he had never responded particularly well to Zhao's bullying management style. 

The sun started to set just before 11 PM. Zuko was so glad to see it that he took a break from working on his laptop to celebrate. By celebrate, he meant putting his empty mug in the empty dishwasher, cracking open a beer - his first of the week - and perching on the edge of the couch to watch the sky fade.

It hit him, then. He was the new (temporary) Vice President of SO Co Alaska. He was. _Him_. Zuko Nakayama, the forgotten son, the fuck-up.

Even as recently as two or three years ago, this would have been the best day of his life. Mai would have bought him a bottle of champagne, the good stuff, and they would have gotten shitfaced like teenagers, laughing and falling into each other and talking about the future, about their plans, about finally _making it._ Maybe he would have called up Azula, too, and left her some kind of ill-advised voicemail demanding _who’s the failure now?_

But now. Now he was just so, so tired, and the sun was gold in a purple sky, turning quickly to black, and his beer was pleasantly bitter on his tongue, and all of that felt more real than some promotion that fell out of the sky and landed in his lap. He laughed quietly at himself for acting like a sentimental old man - like Uncle Iroh - but he couldn’t deny how much of a relief it was to be gone from that awful grey wasteland and be back, well...here.

Maybe in the morning, after he’d gotten some sleep, he'd feel more like he thought he would about the whole thing. 

Morning was a long ways away, though. First he had to proofread his statement again, then get started on those company reports Zhao’s secretary had forwarded him with _Urgent!!!_ in the subject line, and then why not try calling Jee one last time, just for the hell of it. If he could get all of these details out of the way tonight, he’d be able to focus on the important stuff tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. 

Jee picked up after about seven rings, sounding like he’d been asleep, and Zuko almost felt bad for a second, but not bad enough to hang up.

“I am _not_ calling the reporter right now,” Jee said as soon as Zuko was finished explaining the reason for the call, “Look, do you even know what time it is? Nevermind. I’ll call him first thing in the morning.”

“That’s not good enough,” Zuko insisted, “He’s a ticking time bomb. Every minute he’s out there, the more likely it is he’ll run some kind of story about the, uh - about the meeting, and we can’t afford that kind of publicity.”

“You can’t, you mean,” Jee said, and before Zuko could make any kind of reply, continued, “He’s not gonna be writing the story at 1 AM, I can promise you that.”

 _How do you know?_ Zuko wanted to demand, but even he realized he was being just a bit unreasonable.

“I want this cleared up before Monday,” Zuko said instead, “Get a guarantee that reporter won’t write a word about what happened, and ensure all copies of the recording are destroyed. Got it?”

Jee sighed, “Yes, Sir.”

Walking into the SO Co building on Monday was like walking into a minefield. The press release had been sent out, and it seemed like every online journalist was already speculating wildly about what this might mean for the future of SO Co’s Alaskan venture. Zuko managed to dodge the reporters hanging around outside the building, but indoors was another story. Every single employee's eyes were on him as soon as he exited the elevators. The secretary whose name he could never remember showed him to Zhao’s old office, while his coworkers craned their necks to watch his progress in total, almost hostile, silence. 

Zuko's first impression of the office was that it was uncomfortably similar to Ozai’s back in Houston, only slightly smaller. He pushed aside the burst of uneasiness that accompanied that thought, and focused on the words _corner office_ instead. He ran his hand admiringly along the back of the imposing leather desk chair, while the secretary bounced around, telling him where everything was. This was more like it, he thought. This was the way things were supposed to be. 

He waited until she was gone to get him some coffee  before taking out his phone and snapping a picture of his desk - dark wood with red accents - framed on both sides by floor-to-ceiling windows showing the inlet glittering in the sun, Anchorage’s modest skyline, and snow-peaked mountains. He sent it to his uncle, who’d been emailing him links to meditation videos on YouTube all weekend, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, to Mai as well. He hadn't talked to her since last week and was feeling increasingly guilty about not telling her the news. He definitely didn't have time to do it now, though, so she'd just have to wait a little longer. 

The secretary was back within thirty seconds and handed him his coffee, which was made almost the way he liked it. Zuko barely had time to take a sip before she was running through the list of conference calls and meetings scheduled for him that day, all in an obnoxiously upbeat voice, like these were things to look forward to. He was supremely relieved when she went back to her desk and left him to panic in peace, at least until she transferred the first phone call from the US Army Corps of Engineers to his line.

At 10 AM was the office-wide meeting in the Denali Conference Room, where Zuko helped himself to another cup of coffee, and made an excruciating two minute speech about the importance of working together to not let Zhao’s unexpected suspension disrupt operations. Several of his coworkers (employees? subordinates?) asked if he had any further information about the circumstances of Zhao’s suspension, and Zuko made up some bullshit about the details not being released to the public yet to cover for the fact that he still didn’t know, ignoring the significant looks being shared across the table. It felt nearly as unwelcoming as the stakeholders meeting in Barrow, only worse. These people were supposed to be on his side. 

For the rest of the day, in between all his scheduled appointments, the phone was ringing off the hook with contractors and lawyers and people from the Department of the Interior. There would have been more calls if the secretary hadn’t been so diligent about screening them for reporters and environmental whack-jobs. Sorry, _activists._

Zuko ate lunch - a protein bar, he didn’t time for anything else - somewhere around 3 PM, right before another meeting. He wasn’t even hungry, but he needed to eat so he could keep drinking coffee.The brief moment of euphoria from that morning had faded almost immediately as it had come, and now it felt like old times again, full of cold sweat and paperwork.

He didn’t make it home until late that night. The Chinese restaurant a few blocks away was still open - thank god - so he placed an order of dumplings for delivery and sank into his couch, nursing a beer while he started re-reading the financial documents he had received today. He jumped when his phone vibrated harshly on the coffee-table, and picked it up immediately, thinking it was the deliveryman waiting to be buzzed in, but actually it was Mai.

“Congratulations on your promotion,” She said, her low voice a mixture of sincerity and reproach, “Although I wish you had told me yourself rather than letting me find out from the press release.”

He flushed, “I, uh, I meant to, but I’ve just been so busy. You know how it is.”

“I know,” She said, and sounded so unhappy that Zuko suddenly felt lower than dirt. Mai covered it up quickly, though, asking him, "So, how’s it going?”

He gave her a brief run-down of the past twenty-four hours, mostly regarding his frustrations with his father, who _still_ hadn’t returned any of Zuko’s calls and emails. She was sympathetic, in her own way, and distracted him for a few minutes with stories from Houston, but then the deliveryman needed to be buzzed in, so Zuko said goodbye and they hung up. 

Days passed, and Ozai’s non-responsiveness continued, but Zuko gathered from whispers around the office that the story went something like this: it was late, Zhao was out with his ‘drinking buddies’ in DC, and there was some kind of altercation outside the bar with his former boss, a man who mentored him in his early days at SO Co but had since quit. When the police showed up, Zhao did what he did best and now he was facing additional charges of resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer.

None of it surprised Zuko in the least. What _did_ surprise Zuko was that his co-workers all seemed to be taking Zhao’s side. It made no sense - Zhao was an asshole, everyone knew that. And yeah, Zuko was still new, still not trusted, but for god's sake. He had to be better than Zhao, at least. 

Apparently not. Conversations fell silent as he approached, and every time he asked for help, his questions were met with vague answers and misdirection. It was easier to just try and figure everything out himself, which usually he preferred anyway, but this project was on a tight schedule and he desperately needed the support of his coworkers if he was going to get it off the ground. 

They'd treated him like this in Houston too, at first. At least until he was able to convince people he wasn't some spy for his father. Back then, Azula used to tell him (when she was in the mood to give advice, not that he was ever in the mood to take it) that people are stupid and jealous of success. One of his main goals in life was to never, ever think like his sister, but he had to admit...she wasn’t wrong. 

The next few weeks were a blur. Every time he thought he was making progress, it turned out that there were a million little details he’d forgotten about, or hadn’t handled properly, or were completely outside of his control. It was a miracle he managed to get anything done at all. And maybe the job would be easier if he could stop himself from obsessing over all those thinkpieces about how SO Co’s “Northern Empire” was going to crumble under his leadership, but there was something about bad press that made it impossible to stay away. 

He wasn't going to let this project fail. He'd do whatever it took, run himself into the ground if he had to, before admitting defeat. But god, the way his father talked to him (now that they were talking again)... It was like he thought Zuko was barely competent, and Zuko had to stop himself from asking _why would you hire me for this if you didn’t think I could do it?_

On the completely opposite side of the spectrum, Uncle Iroh, apparently under the impression that he was being helpful, continued to send him links to guided meditations, and even threatened to sign him up for a meditation app (first 30 days free!) for his phone. Zuko retaliated by blocking all his calls, although at the recommendation of Dr. Gupta he _was_ meditating before bed to improve the efficacy of his sleeping medications.

He hadn't been doing very well, lately. It wasn't a secret. He knew how tired he looked. Pulling all-nighters at the office multiple times a week certainly wasn't helping, but there just weren't enough hours in the day to get done everything he needed to do, no matter what Dr. Gupta had to say about his 'obsessive' work habits. 

Honestly, he didn’t know how Zhao had managed to do this job and still leave the office at 5 PM every day. Maybe Zhao was just better at it than he was, which was looking pretty likely. Zuko was running on approximately five hours of sleep in the last 72 hours, and no matter how hard he searched, he still couldn't get his hands on any of the results from the second round of oil-spill recovery equipment tests conducted earlier that month in the Bering Strait. Zhao probably would have known exactly where that report was. Of course, Zhao would never have called for a second round of tests in the first place, but whatever. 

The problem was, the more Zuko learned about the management of SO Co Alaska, the less he understood it. Zhao's filing system, for instance. There were documents saved in mislabeled or encrypted files, and files that should have contained documents but were empty, and then some things were just...missing. Zuko came to the conclusion early on that Zhao must have been keeping some of his files on his personal laptop instead of uploading everything automatically to the Cloud. Zuko didn’t get why he hadn’t been made aware of that when he started, but okay. Human error was a thing that happened. Shouldn’t happen, but did. He put in several requests for access to Zhao’s laptop with the IT department, but was assured both by the head IT guy and Ty Lee (his secretary - one week in, he broke down and asked her to re-introduce herself, it was an embarrassing moment for them both) that all of Zhao’s files were available in the Cloud, and he couldn’t possibly be missing anything.

So Zuko conducted several thorough searches of Zhao’s office. Aside from a few locked drawers - and who would have thought that fifteen years down the line, Zuko would regret not letting Jet teach him how to pick a lock? - there was nothing in Zhao’s office either. No hardcopy files, no trace of the elusive laptop. Unless Zhao had taken it with him… But no. Policy dictated he had to surrender it as soon as he was placed on suspension, and Zuko really hoped he had done so, because if Zuko couldn’t rely on company policy being followed, then there was literally nothing to rely on anymore.

It was frustrating. And not just because he hated to do things poorly. Regardless of whether or not Zhao was, for whatever reason, hiding sensitive documents, there was no reason Zuko hadn’t heard back about the results of the equipment tests. They had been carried out at _his_ recommendation. He’d been the one to figure out how to afford them, despite some pretty significant budgetary and time constraints. He should have been the first to receive the report. And yet - nothing. Every time he was on the phone with the chief engineer and tried to bring it up, the guy gave him some bullshit about not being able to comment until the official report had been released. Logistics crew said the same thing. He even tried to pull rank, to no avail. 

The whole thing gave him an awful sinking feeling, like something had gone terribly wrong and no one was telling him what.

When he mentioned his concerns to his father over the phone, Ozai barked that he didn’t care how Zuko did it, _just make sure those goddamn rigs are out of Port Angeles on time or so help me god..._ So it was back to the drawing board, again. 

On the eve of June 1st, with Ozai and the Coast Guard and the oil rig engineers breathing down his neck, Zuko did one last frantic search of the entire office, his laptop, his spam email inbox, the Cloud - everywhere the report could conceivably be. He wished it wasn’t so late at night. He could really have used Mai’s help right about now - she'd always understood computers as effortlessly as breathing - but she was undoubtedly asleep in bed. Zuko was on his own with this.

If he made the call, he would be responsible if things went disastrously wrong. But if he didn’t make the call - if he put it off until he could get the report and talk it over with the risk management people - he could set the whole operation back days, maybe weeks. Maybe jeopardize the entire season. 

Zuko stopped his search sometime in the early hours of the morning, overwhelmed by the possibility of failure, and just sat at the desk, head cradled in his hands, thinking. 

He couldn’t see his way out of this. He didn’t know what to do. This promotion was everything he’d dreamed of. Or, well, not exactly. But it might be the closest he'd ever come. If he fucked it up… he fucked _everything_ up. His life, his career, whatever tatters were left of his relationship with his father. 

When he looked up again, the sun had begun to rise - pale pink over the dark spine of the mountains. Zuko cursed under his breath, and checked his watch. 4:40 AM. He hadn't meant to stay this late - he never did - but here he was again.

The whole building was silent around him, not even the custodial staff had arrived yet. Zuko took of his jacket and stretched, feeling the ache in his back, his legs, his arms dissipate. Then he sat back down in his absurdly comfortable desk chair and kept his tired, sore eyes open just long enough to watch how the shadows from the mountains lengthened, then started to fall away.

It seemed absurd that a place he hated so much could be this beautiful. But then he thought about Sokka, and the way he talked about Alaska like it was a place that could be loved, and that sinking dread returned.

If he fucked this up - he’d be fucking over Sokka too. And that shouldn’t matter to him, but it did. It did. 

Two and a half hours later, Ty Lee woke him up with a gentle hand on his shoulder. He startled awake violently, breathing hard, and it was to her credit that she didn’t flinch away.

“Coffee?” Ty Lee asked brightly. 

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” He straightened up in the chair. His neck hurt, and he was positive his hair was a mess, “Thanks.”

“No problem, sir,” She gave him an amused smile, and hurried away.

She'd grown on him, over the weeks, although her enthusiasm still made his head hurt sometimes. She was  _nice_ \- even about the whole laptop issue, which he'd done a lot of yelling about - and not nearly as ditzy and fake as he'd thought, but fiercely competent too. If Zuko ever made it back to Houston, maybe he'd talk to her about transferring with him. 

Zuko drank his coffee and ate the apple Ty Lee had brought with it, splashed some water on his face in the bathroom and ran his fingers through his hair. The office was filling with people, but he ignored them as he sat back down at his desk and opened his laptop.

It was now or never. His father would be calling him in a couple hours and there would be hell to pay if Zuko hadn’t done it yet.

So he breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, a long, steady exhale despite the feverish pace of his heartbeat, and sent the order to launch the drilling rigs. It was so easy, after so many weeks of worry. Just a short phone call, followed by an email to get it all in writing. Then he packed up his briefcase again, and took the rest of the day off. 

A call did come later that day, interrupting the first real sleep Zuko had gotten all month. But it wasn’t Ozai. It was Jee, telling him there was another stakeholders meeting that he was expected to attend.

“Fucking -” Zuko groaned, too bleary to to care about professionalism, “Really? When?”

“On Monday, the 4th,” Jee didn’t sound any happier about it than Zuko felt.

“I don’t have anything prepared,” Zuko said, anxiety kicking in as he started to wake up. 

“That’s fine,” Jee said, “More than fine. We really just need you to show up, not necessarily say much." 

“Okay,” Zuko propped himself up on his elbow and turned on the bedside lamp, resigning himself to staying awake, “Okay, I’ll be there. But next time, go through my secretary.” And then he hung up.

Then he lay back down and let himself think it, just once. He was going to see Sokka again. Maybe. Hopefully. God, he hoped. But there was no way to tell. Sokka lived...somewhere else, not Barrow. And even if he did come, even if Zuko did see him, it meant nothing. It was nothing. 

For the first time in...however long it had been, Zuko took the weekend off too. He usually got restless without work to do, but he was so burnt out, all he had the energy to do was sleep, order takeout, and catch up with his uncle over the phone. Those calls mostly consisted of him apologizing for being so hard to reach for the past month and changing the subject when Iroh asked how he’d been feeling, lately. He did throw Iroh a bone, though, and told him he'd been meditating semi-regularly. That seemed to cheer his uncle up. He didn't mention that he'd just gotten his new prescription for Xanax filled, but that was mostly because Uncle Iroh was very anti-pharmaceuticals, when it came down to it. 

He'd talked to Mai over the phone about once a week, since his promotion, so there wasn't much to report on his end. She updated him on the usual Houston goings-on, plus Azula’s latest campaign to recruit Mai to work directly under her at her new job managing the former headquarters of Ba Sing Se Energy. Mai seemed to think she could say no to Azula’s offers, but it made him nervous. Mai was good - great, even - at her job, but Zuko didn't see why Azula couldn't let her be great in Houston instead of all the way in fucking _Dubai_.

When he mentioned in passing that he’d been denied access to Zhao’s laptop and suspected Zhao might have taken it with him when he left, he could practically hear Mai sit up straighter.

“That’s against policy,” She said, and Zuko smiled in relief at having his thoughts echoed, “If Zhao is sitting on all that sensitive information, no wonder Legal is scrambling to get him cleared. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s threatened to leak information it if he isn’t guaranteed his job back.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me either,” Zuko said, and decided to take the risk, “And that’s probably part of it. But I’ve started wondering if part of it is also, um, to keep me from accessing the information. Everyone claims all his files were uploaded to the Cloud, but I’m having a hell of a time actually finding them.”

Mai hummed thoughtfully, but she didn't dismiss his theory outright the way he feared she would.

“It’s possible. But first things first - I’ll get to work on locating the laptop. There should be a tracker installed in all company hardware, unless someone disabled it. I just need to get into the program that records that data for the Anchorage office, but that won't be a problem. I’ll call you when I’ve got it.”

“That would be great,” Zuko said, “It’s been driving me crazy not being able to find anything.”

“Well, I can’t help you with the missing files. At least, not yet,” She sounded determined.

Zuko smiled and closed his eyes, pretending they were in the same room. The same bed.

“Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I’m your girlfriend, dumbass,” She said, and her tone softened, “You do know you can always come to me for help, right?”

“Yeah. I do,” He said. The problem wasn't that he didn't trust her, or love her, it was just. He didn't know what the problem was. 

“Good. Now I’m going to get to work on this laptop problem. Talk to you soon,” She said, and hung up.

Flying to Barrow the next morning was a very different experience from last time. He got to use Zhao’s company jet, which meant no lines, no wait time, and no one staring at his face with a mixture of pity and disgust. He walked out alone across the tarmac of Anchorage’s private airstrip in the bright morning light and thought _this is how my life was meant to be_. This was the treatment he deserved. The pilot greeted him at the top of the steps with a truly excellent cup of coffee, then showed him inside.

Zuko completely understood now why Azula insisted on never flying commercial if she could help it. He settled back into the huge black leather seat and watched Anchorage grow small and grey in the distance, before opening up his laptop to check his email using the in-flight wifi. 

His anxiety kicked-in halfway through the flight, but he was more successful talking himself out of it than usual. He had two 10mg tablets of Xanax in his pillbox, a minimal speaking role in the upcoming meeting, and another ride in the private jet waiting for him at the end. This was about as easy as it was going to get.

The good weather followed him all the way to the North Slope, where the pilot informed him the temperature was 45 degrees with a slight wind. He’d brought his parka, but he found he didn’t even need it once he got out into the warmth of the sun. Everything was melting, the piles of dirty snow on the sides of the roads and the cakes of brittle ice on the lagoons and the sea, and it felt almost like spring.

Rodney was there to pick him up in a company truck, and they drove to the crew camp, where he met with the team in the staff room. Jee was clearly not happy to see him, but he didn’t say anything to Zuko about last time, which was honestly more than Zuko deserved after the way he’d humiliated them all with his outburst.

They ran through the agenda for the meeting, then took a quick lunch before heading over to the mayor’s office. 

Zuko was feeling a lot calmer and more in control this time, probably because of the half tablet of Xanax he'd taken beforehand. Dr. Gupta had told him to keep track of how the new medication made him feel, and right now, all he had to report was that he couldn't recall ever feeling this relaxed about public speaking in his life. All the sick fear was still there, but instead of screaming at him, it was like the sound was on mute. He should have taken Dr. Gupta's advice much, much sooner. 

People were filtering into the conference room a few at a time, and Zuko was so focused on not paying attention to who was arriving that he nearly missed Sokka's entrance. But then Zuko looked up and there he was, making the whole room seem brighter as he caught Zuko's gaze and held it, just for the space of a heartbeat, before breaking the connection and taking his seat. Zuko's whole body flushed hot and he stared back down at the stack of handouts on the table in front of him. Sokka looked good - he  _always_ looked good - with a sunburn across his nose and a ready smile on his lips. Grease stains on the sleeves of his Kinalik Crew sweatshirt, workboots tracking mud into the conference room. He looked like he'd been doing things out in the world. 

Meanwhile, Zuko was basically living at the office. But he already knew he didn't hold up well in comparison to Sokka. 

Sokka slid into his seat, and pulled out his phone, and didn't look up from it again for the rest of the meeting. Zuko wished he would, even though he knew that was just his crush or whatever talking, because the longer Sokka ignored him, the more likely they were to get through the meeting without any fatalities and that was - good. That was definitely for the best. 

The conference room kept filling with more and more people, until all the seats were taken and there were people crowding along the walls and out the door. Zuko kept hoping the mayor would send people away - they were definitely over legal capacity by now - but all she did was greet the newcomers and wave them in. 

Jee shot Zuko a look, and Zuko winced internally. The last thing any of them needed were more witnesses, and yet, here they were. Zuko only had himself to blame. Well, him and Sokka - who had an equally short temper, if Zuko was thinking about it (he wasn’t, he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about it at all).

Once the room started quieting down, Zuko pushed all other thoughts aside and watched Jee start the meeting. 

He was quickly interrupted by someone calling out from the back, "So when is SO Co gonna apologize to us?" 

Zuko wanted to sink through the floor. If people weren't looking at him before, they certainly were now - all eyes zeroing in until he could feel them like a physical weight. Distantly, he registered that his heart was pounding. Jee just raised his eyebrows at Zuko, and made a minute gesture that Zuko interpreted to mean  _get up_ and also  _don't make this worse._

So Zuko got to his feet. The pounding in his chest got louder, but it was happening somewhere else, far away. 

“I, uh-” His lips were dry, so he took a sip of water and started again, “On behalf of the Sozin Oil Company, I would like to formally apologize for my actions at the last meeting. I stand by everything that was said, but the manner in which I said it was...unprofessional.”

"Try 'disrespectful,'" Sokka said, without looking up from his phone, "Just a thought." 

Zuko opened his mouth to say something - probably something stupid along the lines of _you were the disrespectful one, at least I didn't swear at anybody_ _-_ but Jee literally yanked on his jacket sleeve to get him to sit down and shut up, so he sat down, and he shut up. 

Uneasy whispers filled the room, but Jee and his colleagues got on with the presentation before any of it could erupt into conflict. Zuko couldn’t stop himself from checking to see Sokka’s reaction, but Sokka wasn’t paying attention, still intently doing whatever it was he was doing on his phone. Whatever. 

The meeting went...okay, after that. Zuko's participation was limited to a brief update about the progress the two drilling rigs were making on their journey up the coast of Washington to Dutch Harbor, where they’d undergo a final round of inspection before heading into the Chukchi Sea. He also showed everyone where they could track the progress of the drilling rigs via satellite map online (another one of his ideas), emphasizing the whole time how greatly SO Co valued transparency at every level.  

 _He_ did, at least. And he wasn’t speaking for Zhao anymore, so it wasn’t exactly a lie.

There were a lot of questions about the Coast Guard’s inspection of the rigs at Dutch Harbor coming up in the next week, what it would entail, whether Zuko though both rigs would pass. He said he had every confidence they would, because if they didn’t… Well, then he’d have a problem. He didn’t say that part, of course

And then that was it. Meeting over.

He sank back into his chair and waved Jee and the other guys on, telling them he'd see them next time. Then he bowed his head, closing his eyes as he listened to people filing out of the conference room until he was alone. He sighed, feeling the letdown the Xanax couldn't entirely erase. It was okay, though. He was okay with it. He just had to get his shit together and call the pilot, and then today would be over. 

But when Zuko opened his eyes again, he saw that he wasn't alone. Sokka was still sitting at the table, phone nowhere to be seen. Waiting for him. 

“What do you want?” Zuko asked, more sharply than he intended, and Sokka shrugged.

“Wanted to see if you meant what you said about transparency,” He said, sounding a little less casual than he looked. 

“I did,” Zuko said, “Stakeholders have the right to information about projects that affect them.”

“Okay, well, that's the thing,” Sokka stood up and walked round the side if the table until they were within arm's reach. Zuko stood up too, reflexively, “You said something last time about how a better oil-spill recovery plan isn’t cost-effective, so I thought you could show me what you meant by that.”

“What?” Zuko asked blankly. 

“That’s your specialty, right? Budgets and stuff,” When Zuko nodded, Sokka continued, “Then I want to see what you’re seeing." 

“No,” Zuko said. Sokka opened his mouth to protest, but Zuko cut in again before he could, “That’s sensitive information. I could get fired if I showed it to someone outside the company. And anyway, do you really think I’d share all my work only to have you publish it in some bullshit exposé on the Greenpeace website?”

Sokka inhaled sharply, something like hurt (?) flickering across his face. 

“First of all, fuck Greenpeace,” He said, stepping closer, “I’m not some spy. I’ll sign whatever you want, a non-disclosure agreement or something. I just want to see what you’re seeing. I want to know what you meant.”

He really wasn’t making it easy. There _was_ a loophole - Zuko was very familiar with it from growing up in a household where even the maids were required to sign NDAs - but still.

“Even if I got an NDA drawn up, it would take hours to explain the math to you, and I don’t have time for that. I need to be back in Anchorage by 7:30,” Zuko said, but he could feel his resolve wavering.

7:30 wasn’t a hard deadline, just a skype appointment with his uncle. Uncle Iroh would understand, though. He’d probably even encourage Zuko to skip.

Fuck, Zuko was going to give in. He knew it.

“Try me,” Sokka said, the hard look in his eyes a challenge, and Zuko sighed.

“Fine. One hour, and then I’m out of here,” He said, opening his laptop back up and connecting it wirelessly to the printer located around the corner in the copy room, “I’m going to need you to sign this first.”

Sokka signed the NDA, although not without complaint.

“You know this is kinda going against that whole transparency thing you said, right?” Sokka informed him, shoving the paper and pen back across the table.

“It’s not - “ Zuko shook his head, “Look, _you’re_ the one who brought up signing something. Do you want to see the data or not?”  

“Just pointing out the hypocrisy,” Sokka said, unphased, “Now show me what you got.”

Zuko pulled up the master copy of the Excel spreadsheets he’d compiled and angled his computer so they both could see it. Sokka must have been somewhat nearsighted, since he had to really lean in to read the column headings, and his shoulder brushed against Zuko’s.

Zuko suppressed a shiver and edged his chair away by a couple inches. It wasn’t an entirely subtle move, judging by Sokka’s derisive snort.

“Tell me what I’m looking at,” Sokka said, and Zuko forced himself to get back on track.

Zuko explained to him the results of the algorithms he’d developed, which took into account the estimates for how many barrels of oil might be under the Chukchi Sea, the projected price-per-barrel for the next ten years, and operation costs for a bunch of different scenarios. He’d put a lot of work into the analysis before his promotion diverted his attention, and it was a relief to be back on familiar ground. Especially after basically spending the whole month feeling like he was drowning.

In truth, it was more than a relief. It was a genuine pleasure to talk to someone who was interested in the work he'd done, who could follow along and ask intelligent questions. Zuko already knew Sokka was smart, but he might have underestimated exactly how perceptive he could be, despite only having a high-school education. Which, of course, came to bite Zuko in the ass. The moment Sokka realized there was a third page to the spreadsheet that Zuko didn't want to show him, he was as relentless and kept badgering Zuko about it,until eventually Zuko showed him, just to get it over with. 

"Woah. What is this?" Sokka asked, squinting at the screen. 

“Oh, that’s, um,” Zuko scratched his neck, stalling. 

“It looks like you called for another round of tests in the Bering Sea, ” Sokka pressed, “Why did no one mention it at the meeting?”

“The report isn’t ready yet,”  Zuko said, which was the nearest thing to the truth he could think of, “The results will be made public as soon as I have access to them.”

“Wait, so you don’t know whether the equipment even works, but you’re sending the rigs up here anyway?”

Something in the tone of Sokka’s voice set him on edge.

“It’s not like they’re heading to the lease areas right away,” Zuko said defensively, “We’ll have more than enough time to troubleshoot if necessary while the rigs are being inspected at Dutch Harbor.”

“Yeah, troubleshooting that shoulda been done already. You’re taking a pretty big risk, don’t you think?” Sokka inhaled sharply, eyes suddenly wide, “That’s why you needed me to sign that thing, isn’t it? So I wouldn’t tell anybody about this. Jesus fucking  _christ_.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about," Zuko snapped, "I called for that second round of tests just to be sure, _on paper_ , of something I’m already sure about.  But that’s it. That’s the only concession I’m going to make. And you can either accept that, or you can keep fighting it, but I don’t give a shit,” He closed his laptop, shoved it into his bag, and stood up, “I’m done here.”

Sokka just clenched his jaw and didn’t stop Zuko from leaving.

Zuko made it as far as the glass doors before he realized that the clear, bright sky from earlier was gone and had been replaced by thick, white fog which swirled eerily around the cars and whale skulls in the parking lot. Visibility was twenty feet, at best, and the air was wet to breathe, heavy in his lungs.

“No, no no no _no_ ,” Zuko said, and he stormed back into the conference room, pulling up the pilot’s number on his phone. This was _not_ how the day was supposed to go. Barrow and its terrible, unpredictable weather could go to hell.

Sokka was still sitting at the table where Zuko had left him, slumped forward in his seat with his head in his hands, muttering something like, “Stupid, _stupid -_ ”

“You made me miss my flight,” Zuko interrupted, and Sokka’s head jerked up.

“Pretty sure that’s not my fault,” Sokka replied. His face was flushed in this really attractive way, but Zuko ignored it, mostly, in favor of a terse conversation with the pilot, who told him it was absolutely not safe to fly back to Anchorage in this weather, despite Zuko’s best attempts to convince him otherwise.  

“Can’t fucking believe this,” Zuko said as he hung up, then started searching through his phone for the hotel’s number.

“If a pilot doesn’t want to fly because of the weather, you should respect that,” Sokka said, because of course he was still there, and Zuko groaned. An audience was the last thing he needed right now.

“I didn’t ask for your advice,” Zuko said, “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

He turned away, thumb poised over the green call button beside the hotel’s number when he heard Sokka stand up behind him and for whatever godforsaken reason, he hesitated.

“Hey, look -” Sokka said, and Zuko turned back to face him, annoyed.

Sokka was standing there, arms at his side, fingers trailing over the back of his chair, his ragged, bitten-off nails, _god_ all those little details that Zuko couldn’t help noticing, and Zuko asked, softer than he intended, “Yeah?”

“I know we don't see eye-to-eye about a lot of stuff, but I really didn't mean to cause so much trouble last time. Things got out of hand, and I feel bad about it,” Sokka made an apologetic face, “I was raised to always think before I speak, which kinda - you can probably tell I’m not great at it.”

“You, uh -” Zuko didn’t even know what he meant to say, so it was really for the best that Sokka interrupted him.

“I mean, I stand by what I said, too. You came to us, to _our_ land, and disrespected our way of life in front of our elders, and made it sound like SO Co doesn’t give a shit about the things it destroys as long as it keeps making money, so yeah, I think I had a right to be pissed off. But there’s other ways I could’ve said it," Sokka conceded. 

“I, um,” Zuko tried, and failed, to meet his eyes, “I was out of line, too. Sometimes when I get angry, I end up saying things I regret. It’s not - I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. I didn’t mean to, uh, insult you, or your culture. That was unprofessional, and I’m sorry.”

“I already told you, I don’t give a shit about ‘unprofessional,’” Sokka said, intent, like it meant something else, something _more,_  and Zuko felt that electric spark again, was helpless against it. 

 _He’s so gorgeous,_ Zuko thought wildly, and hoped it wasn’t showing on his face. 

"Professionalism means a lot to me," Zuko said, once he got his breath back, "It's how I show respect. And - yeah. I really am sorry." 

 Sokka gave him a searching look, and apparently whatever he found in Zuko's expression convinced him, because he deliberately relaxed. 

"Well, for what it's worth, you should count yourself lucky you went up against me and not my sister," Sokka said, smiling slightly, "She's a real live-wire, she would've loved ripping you to shreds. I'm the patient one in my family, if you can believe it." 

 “You could have been up against my sister too,” Zuko said, and there was no way to match the fondness in Sokka's voice. 

It was an awful thought - Azula here, standing at the head of the conference room and giving everyone that razor-sharp look of hers, like she could see their secrets and knew how to use them. He imagined Sokka arguing uselessly, everything he said getting twisted up and turned against him.

“Oh yeah? S’she a fighter too?” Sokka asked, interested. 

“No, she’s -” Worse than that, Zuko wanted to say, “I don’t know. Just - if you ever run into her, for whatever reason, don’t believe a word she says about anything.”

Sokka raised his eyebrows, “Okay...I’ll keep that in mind.”

Zuko should have kept his mouth shut. Sokka didn’t need to know his family baggage - it's not like Azula was coming up to Alaska any time soon. To cover his awkwardness, Zuko glanced back at his phone. Instead of calling the hotel, he could probably just get a driver to take him over and book a room in person. Maybe Rodney was still at the crew camp and could pick him up. 

“Hey, so. Since you’re stuck here, I was wondering…” Sokka started, then seemed to lose his nerve. He worried the ragged cuticle of his thumb, and Zuko tracked the movement out of the corner of his good eye, “The woman I’ve been staying with, Marge, she’s down in Nome visiting her daughter who just had a baby, so I’ve got the house to myself tonight. I was gonna make some dinner after this, maybe watch a movie." 

The silence stretched a couple seconds too long, so Zuko nodded to show he was listening. The screen of his phone went dark, and he didn't revive it. 

“I know I gotta get better at taking a hint, because you’ve shot me down, like, every time I’ve asked, and I don’t wanna be that guy who keeps pushing when it’s - when you're not into this," He took a deep breath, "I don't even know what I'm expecting you to say, but. Would you maybe wanna join me? Just to hang out, no pressure. I was gonna grill up some salmon, I don’t know if you like that, and -”

He was rambling, Zuko realized. And that didn’t make sense, why he’d be nervous, when Zuko was - when Zuko - 

“Yes,” Zuko said, before he could stop himself, “Yeah, I’d - I’d like that.”

Sokka froze, the words dying on his lips, and then he grinned, wide and a little incredulous, “Wait, really?”

“Let me just - I have to call the hotel first,” Zuko fumbled with his phone. His face was burning like he was a teenager again, and this was possibly the worst idea ever, not to mention a serious conflict of interest. If people found out, or the media, all those vultures waiting to take him down, or his father, or -

But Sokka leaned his hip against the edge of the table and waited, still smiling at him like Zuko had done something right for once, and that - yeah, Zuko would make a lot of bad decisions just to have someone look at him like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a result of my research for this fic, I volunteered with a project run out of Barrow last summer, and got to go up there for a few weeks!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have this idea,” Sokka interrupted, softly, “It’s - probably stupid. But I gotta know if I’m reading you right or if I’m just - if this is all just wishful thinking."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soooo much talking in this one omg
> 
> (minor content notes at the end)

Zuko pulled up the hotel’s number on his phone, and tried to ignore the way his palms were sweating, his heart racing. He'd wonder what the hell was going on with him, but he already knew the answer. It wasn’t some kind of mystery. For a moment, Zuko let himself feel it - the fear and the longing, and that rush he got whenever he did exactly what he wanted, consequences be damned. 

Then the receptionist at the Top of the World Hotel picked up, her voice slightly garbled by bad cell signal, and Zuko had to turn away from Sokka so he could concentrate on making the reservation.

He could feel Sokka’s gaze lingering at his back, but only for a little while before Sokka apparently lost interest and started playing some kind of game on his phone, the faint carnival noises of it just loud enough to irritate Zuko, who walked to the other end of the conference room, jaw clenched, to continue spelling out his reservation into the static. 

When Zuko finally managed to finish the reservation, after having to repeat his credit-card number _twice,_ he hung up and turned to Sokka, but Sokka didn’t even look up, too engrossed in his stupid little game.

Zuko cleared his throat impatiently - he’d always hated being kept waiting. His father was known to fire people on the spot for it. But Sokka just made a distracted _not yet_ kind of gesture and made Zuko stand there while he finished his level or whatever.

Finally there was a triumphant burst of tinny music, and Sokka fist-pumped and pocketed his phone.

“You good to go?” Sokka asked, pushing off from the table and walking towards the door, like he just expected Zuko to follow him. Zuko followed him.

“Yeah,” Zuko said shortly, “I was ready ten minutes ago, too.”

Sokka laughed, and lead him out to the parking lot. _God_ , Zuko thought despite himself. Even the way he walked was a pleasure to watch.

“Well, ten minutes ago I hadn’t just beat my high score, so…”

Zuko let the violent crunch of gravel beneath his shoes show Sokka exactly what he thought of that.

The air around them was murky-white and thick with moisture, the kind of damp cold that got into Zuko’s bones and made him regret ever going outdoors. It was difficult to see, and impossible to tell whether Sokka’s truck was there or not in the fog.

A thought occurred to him, and he asked, horrified, “You didn’t walk all the way here, did you?”

Sokka laughed again, “No way. I borrowed a vehicle for the week from one of the guys I work with." 

A few seconds later, they reached a - Zuko didn't know what was it, exactly. A golf cart?

“It’s a side-by-side,” Sokka explained, pulling the latch on the unlocked canvas and plastic door and climbing into the driver’s seat, “Don’t look so skeptical.”

Zuko side-eyed it one last time before climbing in, and was immediately hit with the smell of gasoline, and something sour like spilled milk. He looked around for the source of the smell, conscious of his suit and future dry-cleaning bill, but saw nothing besides a few old stains on the seats.

“Does it meet with your approval, Mr. Nakayama?” Sokka asked, the smart-ass, and Zuko was about to speak his mind before Sokka turned the key in the ignition and, after a few false starts, the vehicle shuddered to life, impossibly loud.

“Is this thing even safe?” Zuko yelled, but Sokka couldn’t hear him over the noise.

It turned out that Sokka’s driving ability hadn’t improved at all since last time. The side-by-side kept veering to the right, so Sokka kept over-correcting to the left, and Zuko had to clench his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out and grabbing the wheel to stop them from swerving into a ditch, or, once, a telephone pole.

After a few hair-raising minutes, Sokka parked outside a huge grey building and cut the engine. Zuko’s ears rang in the sudden silence.

“You ever been to the AC Store before?” Sokka asked, pulling the latch on the flimsy door and getting out. He arched his back, briefly, stretching like it was bothering him.

“No,” Zuko said. He took a moment to collect his laptop bag before getting out, because what kind of car - cart - _thing_ didn’t have locks?

“Huh. Thought maybe you’d gone here on your tour, I know Suki sometimes brings people,” He said her name like he enjoyed the sound of it. _Suki_. That pretty tour guide who’d touched Sokka’s shoulder. Zuko really shouldn’t have been able to remember that.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sokka continued, “You can see it now. I gotta pick up some groceries for tonight.”

Zuko didn’t know what he was expecting, based on that information, but inside it turned out to be a completely normal grocery store along the lines of Costco or maybe Walmart. There were a few people selling crafts in the muddy entryway, and a rack of bright traditional parkas with fur hoods by the cash registers, but other than that, Zuko might as well have been back in Texas. It wasn’t until he stopped and looked at the prices that he realized what was different.

“Fourteen dollars for a gallon of milk?” He asked as Sokka placed the jug in their cart, “That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, and it’s way worse in the village too. I got a whole list of stuff to bring back with me when I leave Thursday,” He picked out an eight dollar package of oreos, and set them reverently in the cart, “Oh man, I _love_ these. Double-stuffed is the best.”

“There are different kinds?” Zuko asked. Maybe he just couldn’t remember - even as a teenager he’d never liked junk food.

That distracted Sokka for a while - apparently he had _opinions_ about the different varieties of oreos. But once he’d finished his proselytizing, Sokka said, “Anyway, you get why subsistence hunting is so important here. Most people can’t afford grocery store food all year long. We rely on the land and the sea to feed us.”

It was the same thing all the Elders at the first meeting had said - on and on about ‘the ocean is our garden.’ But of course, everything sounded different when Sokka was saying it.

“For instance, me and my sister would’ve gone hungry back when we were teenagers if I hadn’t been able to go hunting after school and in the summers,” Sokka continued, and there was an edge in his voice, some old hurt not forgotten.

Zuko had no idea what to say to that, so he said nothing and felt like an asshole. Sokka glanced at him briefly, gauging his response, then away.

“Hey, wanna see how much a head of lettuce costs here?” Sokka asked, in a completely different tone of voice.

Zuko didn’t, but he found out anyway. 

They went all around the store after that, following Sokka’s whims. He seemed to have only the vaguest idea of what he was going to cook, aside from the salmon. Zuko wished he had known that before agreeing to come - he hated shopping, as a rule, and hated waiting for people who couldn’t make up their minds even more. But he kept thinking about Sokka as a kid, not being able to go to a grocery store without worrying about the cost of things, when Zuko’s family had never once met a price tag too high.

It made him feel strangely guilty, so he kept his mouth shut and let Sokka impulsively take them to the homegoods section, and then to the clothing section, where he drooled over a flannel-lined Carhartt jacket, and then back to the frozen food aisle, and then finally to the checkout line.

There was definitely something there, Zuko thought, if he was enjoying even this time spent with Sokka. It was probably one-sided, but he still needed to tell Mai about it sooner rather than later. She said before he left Houston that she wanted to know if he met anyone, even if nothing happened. And it’s not like anything was _happening_ here, but he did have. Well. It was hard not to feel _something_ when Sokka bumped shoulders with him in the frozen food aisle, as they tried to figure out the cheapest price per ounce, and didn’t move away.

Anyone would.

Sokka chatted with the cashier while he paid for their overpriced groceries, waving away Zuko’s offer to cover half of it. Zuko tried to explain that it would be covered by his per diem, so it wasn’t even his money if that was the concern, but that just made Sokka’s voice harden as he said, “I don't want SoCo paying for my fucking food. I got this.”

So Zuko subsided, stung. He hadn’t meant it like that, but he didn’t know how to say _don’t make me think this is a date if it isn’t one_ without sounding pathetic.

Once they’d gathered the bags of groceries, Zuko assumed they were going to be leaving, and he felt awash with anticipation for what was to come - dinner and a movie, god it definitely _sounded_ like a date. But, of course, Sokka wasn’t ready to leave yet. First, he had to stop at each of the folding tables set up in the entryway to talk to the old-timers selling their crafts, asking how they made things, discussing their families, the caribou run, and the weather.

Zuko hung back, overdressed and awkward with his laptop case and grocery bags, not having anything to contribute, and not really catching most of what was being said anyway. Sokka’s accent was thicker talking to them than Zuko had ever heard it, and it made Zuko wonder if that’s what Sokka really sounded like, at home, when he was comfortable. If the rest of the time he was just pretending.

Zuko must have zoned out, thinking about that, and the small kernel of discomfort that accompanied it, because the next thing he knew, Sokka had his wallet out and was negotiating a purchase. For everyone’s sake, Zuko really, really hoped it was a piece of jewelry and not that long black slab half wrapped in cardboard and propped up against the wall.

It was, of course, the weird black thing that Sokka had decided to buy. Which was how Zuko ended up carrying all of the grocery bags out of the AC Store while Sokka single-handedly maneuvered a fifteen foot long piece of baleen into the cramped backseat of the side-by-side. 

“You don’t mind sitting in the back, do you?” Sokka asked, “Somebody needs to make sure it doesn’t fall out.”

So Zuko sat in the back, grocery bags crowded at his feet, clutching onto the part of the baleen that was actually inside the vehicle to prevent it from sliding out the window every time Sokka hit a bump in the road, which was often.

“Sorry about that,” Sokka said (well, shouted), looking back at him through the rearview mirror and not sounding sorry at all, “I just couldn’t say no. It was only a hundred bucks!" 

That didn’t make the purchase less incomprehensible. But it was too loud to ask what the hell Sokka was going to use the baleen for, so he saved it, and looked out the window instead. And to think, he could be at his hotel right now, writing emails and longing for a mini-bar.

It didn’t sound like a particularly appealing option, now that he thought of it like that. God, his life was sad.

“Nearly there,” Sokka said, and Zuko looked back at exactly the right moment to catch his eyes in the rearview mirror, a quick charged glance.

 _I want him,_ Zuko thought, unbidden. This could easily turn out to be nothing, another case of misreading the situation, but Zuko had to take the chance anyway. He had to get out of his own life, even just for a little while.

So he adjusted his hold on the baleen, and texted Mai one-handed. _I need to talk to you about something tomorrow._ She would understand.

Sokka pulled into a muddy driveway, and turned the engine off, bathing them once again in blissful silence. Zuko disentangled himself from both the baleen and the grocery bags, and followed him out, less than enthusiastically.

Marge’s house was a weathered grey one-story with a dirt yard and a battered front door that hung slightly ajar. Zuko helped Sokka carry the baleen indoors into a mudroom of scuffed plywood and broken children’s toys, then went back for the bags. This was another thing he wished he’d known in advance: Marge’s house was a fucking _shack._

But then Sokka unlocked the door to the main house, and Zuko reconsidered, slightly. Marge was no great interior decorator by any means, and Zuko couldn’t actually imagine living somewhere this small without going stir-crazy, but there was a comfortable-looking couch in front of the TV and an assortment of porcelain crucifixes and framed family photos hanging on the pale blue walls. Tastelessly frilly floral accents were everywhere, but even that reminded him in a weirdly pleasant way of his great-aunts’ house in the Keys.

“Not what you were expecting, huh?” Sokka asked, startling Zuko out of his thoughts, “We’re not all as poor as we look.”

“I never -” Zuko broke off. Sokka had him pinned, and they both knew it.

Sokka rolled his eyes, “Oh, come on. That’s what you’ve been thinking from the start, isn’t it? That we're savages who need to be saved by Big Oil.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Zuko said, and realized a second too late that he was about to put his foot in his mouth, “But - look, you’d have to be an idiot not to realize everything you have here is paid for by oil money. Your schools, roads, electricity, indoor plumbing. Your whole economy, for god’s sake. If all of that goes away, what do you have left? _Tourism?_ ”

“Are you calling me an idiot?” Sokka asked, which was so totally beside the point that it caught Zuko off guard.

“No, not - not you. You’re -” Shit. Zuko scrubbed his hands over his face, “I was trying not to argue with you.”

“Well, you’re doing a _great_ job.”

Sokka turned, and started loading groceries into the fridge loudly. Zuko flinched at the angry _thunk_ of the gallon of milk on the shelf. Once everything was in, Sokka slammed the fridge door shut, and rested his hands against the edge of the counter, head bowed, not looking at Zuko at all.

Zuko felt a little pang of loss. He’d done it - ruined the evening before it even really started.  

“You know, when Ozai decided to send his own son up here to meet with us, I thought maybe SO Co was finally willing to listen to us,” Sokka said, and he sounded tired, like he was sick of arguing too, “But you’re just as bad as the rest of them. So busy upholding corporate interests you can’t even _consider_ that there might be other perspectives.”

Zuko’s gut twisted, but he said, “Did you seriously think I would be on your side?”

“Guess not,” Sokka said. His knuckles were almost white against the Formica. The moment stretched long between them.

“Is that really what you think of us?” Sokka asked, softer, “That without oil, we’re nothing?”

Zuko should have said yes. He shouldn’t even have hesitated. That’s the only reason he was here, after all, to make the stakeholders realize how much they needed what SoCo was offering. But the easy answer died in his throat.

“When I’m with you, I don’t know what to think,” Zuko said, too honest.

Sokka exhaled, not quite a sigh, “Well, that makes two of us.” He pushed himself away from the counter and headed to the door, already reaching into his back pocket for a pack of cigarettes, “I’m gonna go for a smoke.”

And then Zuko was alone in the kitchen of a stranger’s house. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache loom. This was so fucking typical of his life. He should probably just leave before Sokka came back in, and make this easier for both of them. It couldn’t be that long of a walk to the hotel.

But there was nothing waiting for him there. Nothing at all. So Zuko put his parka and shoes back on, braced himself for the miserable weather, and left the house. 

Sokka wasn’t in the front yard. Zuko's first instinct was to assume he’d left entirely, unwilling to put up with Zuko’s shit a moment longer. It’s what Mai did, during their more intense fights. But the side-by-side was still parked. Zuko checked around the back of the house anyway, just to be sure, and couldn’t deny his relief when he saw Sokka sitting on top of the worn-out picnic table next to the barbeque, trying and failing to light a cigarette with the long grill lighter.

Without questioning his motives too hard, Zuko said, “Let me,” and stepped between Sokka’s legs. His thighs felt really solid. Want rose up in Zuko in a wave - that magnetic feeling. 

Sokka looked momentarily surprised, but he handed the lighter over anyway. It was easier with a grill lighter than the regular ones - the flame wasn’t as close to Zuko’s face - although he would have done it anyway, just for the chance to get this close.

Seabirds called from the lagoon, and everything was silent, empty, obscured by fog. Zuko thought suddenly _no one can see us right now. We could do anything._ But then the cigarette caught, and smoke stung his eyes, and he stepped back, giving Sokka space.

Sokka stared down at the lighter Zuko handed back to him like he was seeing it for the first time. Zuko felt cold where he was no longer pressed against Sokka’s body. It was stupid - this whole thing was stupid. He wished he had the guts to say what he wanted.

“Sorry for that whole thing,” Sokka said, out of the blue, waving his cigarette vaguely, “I didn’t mean to start arguing, but there’s something about you that just gets under my skin. I don’t know why. I’ve heard a hundred oil men say the same exact bullshit, and worse, but it never pisses me off as much as it does when it’s coming from you.”

Zuko swallowed back that small indignant part of him that wanted to fight, _still_ , that wanted to take issue with calling any of what he said bullshit. He was going to be an adult about this. He was going to apologize. It wouldn’t kill him.

“I probably haven’t given you a very good impression of the work I’m trying to do here,” Zuko started, measuring his words, “But this project is important to me. I want to do my best. I want it to be a success. What you’ve seen - the way I’ve been acting, it’s just -” It felt like a confession, “I don’t know why, but you get under my skin too. I’m not - I’m not proud of the way I keep rising to the bait.”

Sokka exhaled smoke thoughtfully, studying the pattern of ash cast across his jeans. A slight breeze had started up, tugging at the plastic tarps covering a snow-machine, and Zuko thought _fuck it._

“I can do numbers, and I can do systems. But dealing with the public has never been my strong suit.” Sokka muttered _no shit,_ which Zuko ignored, “I’m trying to be better. I’m trying to listen.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sokka sighed, “I know.”

“If you want me to head out now, I understand,” Zuko said, trying to sound like it didn’t matter to him either way when it did, it _did._

Sokka was silent for a moment, and Zuko shifted in place, expecting the worst.

“You can leave if you want. But the offer of dinner is still good. I mean,” Sokka laughed, sounding almost nervous, “I’ve been trying to make this happen since _April_. I’m not gonna bail now.”

 _Make what happen?_ Zuko wanted to ask. He knew what he wanted - what he hoped - but it was impossible to decipher the expression on Sokka’s face and the quick motion of his fingers as he brushed off the ash on his knee.  

“Um -” Zuko said, his breath trapped in his chest a painful clench, “No, I -” _I want to stay._ He didn’t know why it was so fucking difficult to commit to a bad idea he’d already committed himself to.

“I want to cook you dinner,” Sokka said, standing up, a decisive motion, “We don’t have to talk about any of this stuff anymore. Just dinner and a movie, if we feel like it.”

He sounded so sure, like this was so easy. And maybe it was easy. Or it could be.

“Okay,” Zuko let out the breath he was holding, “Okay.”

And that was it.

Sokka smiled at him, all white teeth and blue eyes, and took another drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out, “Guess I better fire up the grill, then.”

Zuko watched him get the grill set up, but as soon as the bottle of starter fluid made an appearance, he started backing up.

“I’ll meet you back inside,” Zuko said.

“No, wait, help me with something,” Sokka said, oblivious. He lit the barbeque, which caught with a _whoosh_ that made Zuko’s hair stand on end, and then disappeared around the side of the house, coming back with a flattened cardboard box, balanced on top of a plastic bin which he heaved onto the picnic table.

Sokka laid the cardboard out on the table, and Zuko looked down into the bin’s contents.

“Is that, um,” He started.

“Chum salmon, caught fresh this morning,” Sokka said, “We usually don’t see them this early in the summer, but they started showing up early this year. Must be the warmer weather.”

There were at least five enormous fish lying at the bottom of the bin in a pool of their own blood. Zuko recoiled - understandably, he thought, but Sokka just laughed at him and pushed up his sleeves. He plunged his hands into the bin and sorted through them before pulling one out and slapping it onto the cardboard.

“How’s this one look?” Sokka asked.

They all looked pretty much the same, which was to say equally unappetizing. The thought must have shown on Zuko’s face, because Sokka laughed.

“City boy,” He muttered good-naturedly, and Zuko forced himself to stop staring straight into the salmon’s dead eye.

Sokka pulled out his knife, explaining how he was going to get the spine out, but Zuko was wearing a $2,500 suit and was frankly not in the mood to see any more fish blood than he had to.

“I’m gonna, uh, go back inside,” He said, and this time actually managed to walk away.

It’s not like he was squeamish or anything. He just - okay, he was a little squeamish. Maybe it was just the way he’d been raised, with a cook who came in six days a week, but he’d never liked knowing what his food looked like before he ate it. Uncle Iroh, of course, used to buy all kinds of weird stuff at the Japanese market in Austen, but Zuko made a point of not sticking around to watch him prepare it.

Zuko paused for a second before rounding the corner to the front of the house. It was easier to watch from a distance - where Zuko could see the efficient grace of Sokka’s hands without a close-up of the salmon’s splayed-open carcass. He hoped Sokka didn’t think less of him for not helping more, but he probably did. Just another inadequacy to add to the rest.

It didn’t matter. Once he got back inside, he checked his phone and found two new messages, one from Mai, which read _I need to talk to you about something too,_ which was slightly ominous, and a voicemail from Azula, which was significantly more so. His heart stopped, then started back up again in double-time. Like a harbinger of doom, she only ever got in touch with him to gloat when something had gone terribly wrong for him, or was about to. This - whatever it was - was bound to be bad.

He paced the small kitchen a couple times, debating whether to listen to it. It could be about their father. Or the company. Maybe something had gone wrong - some new public relations crisis he’d missed because his phone didn’t have data this far into the boondocks. But before he could grit his teeth and listen to the voicemail, the front door swung open and Sokka reappeared, carrying two halves of the salmon.

“Everything good?” Sokka asked, eyeing him on his way to the sink.

“Fine, yeah,” Zuko said, pocketing his phone. For once in her goddamn life, whatever Azula had to say could wait.

Sokka turned the radio on and started humming along with the music, which seemed to be Disco hits of the ‘70’s tonight, as he whipped up a marinade for the fish. Zuko leaned against the counter next to him, arms crossed, watching. Sokka was grating ginger, the sharp smell filling the air, and it reminded Zuko almost painfully of his uncle’s apartment at dinnertime.

“Smells good?” Sokka asked, and pulled a couple canisters from the spice rack.

“Yeah,” Zuko said. He thought about mentioning his uncle, but refrained, “You’re not using a recipe?”

Sokka shrugged, “Never really had the patience for them, so mostly I just make things up as I go along,” His lips quirked up in a smile, “Sometimes it works, and sometimes I set the stove on fire.”

“On _fire_?” Zuko said, putting a few more feet of distance between them.  

“Only a little fire!” Sokka said, but it was hardly reassuring.

Zuko had never been a particularly good, or patient cook either. But that was probably because he’d never really tried. In the beginning of their relationship, he and Mai used to cook together, but their attempts always ended in arguments, so now they primarily ate takeout.

This was nice, though - watching Sokka move around the kitchen, listening to him as he described in visceral detail his top ten cooking disasters, and occasionally moving out of his way as he reached for things in the cabinet behind Zuko’s back. It would probably be even nicer if he didn’t have a headache, still lingering dully at his temples. Stress, and possibly dehydration. The air in Barrow was weirdly - surprisingly - dry.

“Is it always this dry here?” He asked absently.

“Yeah, man. We’re in a desert,” Sokka said, and grinned, “That always gets people, like - they think with all the standing water this is a super wet climate, but actually we only get five inches of rain a year. Which, if you convert it to inches of snow -”

Zuko tuned him out. He couldn’t help it. He went to get the painkillers in his briefcase, but he could really use a drink too. It had been a long fucking day. Yeah - a couple Advil and a beer, and he’d be all set. He was about to ask if Marge had one of those alcohol permits Sokka had mentioned, but then Sokka went to run the salmon out to the grill. So Zuko took the opportunity to poke around a little in the fridge, and failing at that, the pantry.

Nothing. But maybe there was a liquor cabinet somewhere. Sokka came back in before he could look anywhere else, which was probably for the best. Hunting around like that felt kind of invasive, furtive even, like he was a teenager about to do something bad.

“Is there, um -“ He said, “Does Marge have anything to drink?”

Sokka groaned, “Ugh, I’m the worst. I totally forgot. There’s water in the pitcher, and in the fridge we have coke, OJ, iced tea…”

“No, I meant, um. Does she have any alcohol?” He felt a little ridiculous saying it, but if Sokka said yes, it would be worth it.

Nothing changed in Sokka’s expression, but suddenly the room felt different. Sokka didn’t answer at first, going instead to the sink where he started filling a pot with water.

“She might have a bottle of wine somewhere, for company,” He said at last, “I’m not sure where, though. She doesn’t tell me."

Zuko was going to say that it didn’t matter - he could help Sokka find it.

But then Sokka said, “I’d rather you didn’t, if that’s okay. I mean, you can go look for it. Whatever. It’s not gonna -” Distracted, he picked up a measuring cup and set it down again on the counter with a hollow clack, “It’s fine. I’d just prefer if you didn’t.”

“Why?” Zuko asked, despite himself.

Sokka made a face, “I’m two years sober.”

“Oh,” Zuko said stupidly, “I didn’t - I didn’t know that.”

Sokka shrugged, and went back to pouring rice into the pot, “It’s not something I usually lead with, you know? Marge is great about it, though - she doesn’t drink much either. That’s why I stay here instead of at my uncle’s place with all my cousins.”

“I - okay. I’ll just get myself some water then,” Zuko said, woefully inadequate.

“Thanks,” Sokka said, light, casual, like it was no big deal. The room still felt heavy around them.

Zuko poured himself a glass of water and tried to think of the right thing to say so Sokka knew he didn’t care, that it didn’t matter. Except that it did matter. This changed everything.  

He thought about how long it had been since the last time he’d tried to get a guy he liked into bed with him, or at least into the same bathroom stall, and then he thought about the last time he’d tried it sober. High school. Fuck. That one time with Jet. The single worst decision of Zuko’s entire life.

The radio cut to some kind of call-in program, which he hardly noticed. Sokka had started stir-frying a bag of frozen vegetables while the rice cooked, steam rising violently from the frying-pan and filling the air with moisture.

“This is the birthday program,” Sokka said, still casual, like they’d just been talking about the weather or some shit, “Last year my _aaka,_ I mean, my grandmother, I call her Gran Gran though, phoned in when I was working in town on my birthday. As soon as the guys at the repair shop heard my name on the radio they stopped everything just to listen. She spent like, one second wishing me a happy birthday and then she was telling me all these things like _make sure you’re treating your Auntie well,_ and _don’t forget to pick up some more of those frozen French fries from the AC store,_ and then she sang, oh my god. It was so embarrassing. The guys still tease me about it.”

“My uncle would do something like that,” Zuko said. Mentally, he made a note never to let Sokka’s Gran Gran and Uncle Iroh meet - they would inevitably conspire to make everyone’s lives hell.

Sokka smiled, warm, “It’s good to have family who love you.”

“I guess,” Zuko said, and then, to get out of that line of conversation, “Want me to pick out a movie to watch?”

“Yeah!” Sokka said, “That’d be great.”

Zuko went over to look at Marge’s collection of DVDs in the entertainment center. There were a lot of titles he didn’t recognize, or had heard of in passing but knew nothing about. He pulled a few out at random and read them to Sokka, who laughed.

“It’s up to you, man. I’ll watch anything. Rom com, action, comedy, whatever.”

So that was helpful. The stir-fry was smelling really, really good, and Zuko was maybe hungrier than he’d anticipated, because he found it hard to focus on the spines of the DVD cases in front of him. Mai didn’t watch action movies _or_ romantic comedies - she thought both genres were mindless and boring, and preferred foreign films about intelligent women who were bored by things. Zuko himself didn’t have a preference. The last time he’d watched something of his own choosing for fun was...college? Maybe?

Sokka seemed like the kind of guy who’d probably watched everything on this shelf. He should be the one over here, making these decisions.  

“Dinner in ten,” Sokka said, and disappeared out the door. When he came back in, bearing the salmon, which smelled fucking _incredible,_ and saw that Zuko had come no closer to a decision, he said, “Still no luck?"

He crouched down beside Zuko, close enough that their shoulders brushed and Zuko was overwhelmed momentarily by his smoky-warm smell and heat of his skin.

“I don’t watch a lot of movies,” Zuko admitted. He stayed very still, feeling Sokka move beside him as he sorted through the cases.

“Good thing I’m here, then,” Sokka nudged him playfully, and Zuko smiled back, even as he lost his balance and landed on his ass. Sokka burst out laughing, but he did help Zuko back up, a steadying hand on his arm, and Zuko had to remind himself that it meant nothing, that Sokka was like this with everyone.

Sokka chose _Captain America: The First Avenger_ after a couple minutes of deliberation, which Zuko hadn’t heard of before, but Sokka seemed really enthusiastic about it. He also seemed completely gobsmacked that Zuko was unfamiliar with the franchise.

“My village literally just got internet this year, and _you’re_ the one who doesn’t know what Marvel is?” Sokka squawked, “Have you been living under a rock?”

“I have a life,” Zuko replied snappishly, “And a job. I don’t have time to keep up with pop culture.”

Sokka just rolled his eyes instead of rising to the bait, “C’mon then, grab yourself a plate and prepare to be educated.”

They filled their plates at the counter, then moved to the couch. Zuko wasn’t sure how much space to leave between them, but of course, Sokka seated himself right in the middle of the couch. Zuko couldn’t help but be acutely aware of every molecule of air between them. It didn’t help that Sokka was so - so _present_ , sprawled out next to him, balancing his plate on his thigh and eating one-handed as he stretched his other arm along the back of the couch, seemingly oblivious to the scant inch and a half separating his hand from the back of Zuko’s neck.

Zuko tried to listen to Sokka’s crash-course in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as opening credits rolled, but it was hard to concentrate, and then he took his first bite of the salmon and _fuck._

“Fuck,” He said, and Sokka frowned, worried, “No, I mean - this is really, really good.”

“You think so?” Sokka asked.

“Definitely,” Zuko said. He hadn’t had food this good since, well. There were all those fancy business dinners back in Houston, but he was always too strung out on nerves during those to really appreciate the meal, “You give my uncle a run for his money.”

“I’m guessing that’s a good thing,” Sokka said.

“It is. He owns a tea house, and whenever he decides to cook, there’s always a line out the door for hours.”  

“That’s awesome. Thanks, man,” Sokka said, smiling bright. Zuko looked away. He didn’t know why but it made him feel like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down. That same swooping fear and euphoria combined.

They watched the movie for a while after that. It wasn’t particularly good. Zuko could already imagine the way Mai would pick apart the acting, the plot, the artless cinematography. But Sokka kept talking about homoerotic subtext and _when will MCU give us the bisexual Steve Rogers we deserve?_ And Zuko found himself paying attention, unable to ignore the feeling he had that Sokka was trying to tell him something important. 

About halfway through, Sokka looked over at him and asked, “You don’t do this a lot, do you? Take a night off, I mean.”

“I’ve been really busy lately,” Zuko said, as if that wasn’t a description of his entire life, “With the promotion and everything. It’s a big responsibility.”

Sokka nodded, thoughtful, “Of course, yeah,” He chewed briefly on the inside of his cheek, “You know, I wasn’t gonna say anything, but I swear, every time I see you, you look even more exhausted.”

 _Great_. Zuko sighed, “At this point, I think it’s permanent. I even slept last night. Well, a little.”

“Do you not usually sleep?” Sokka asked, his tone carefully neutral.

It was tempting to tell the truth. That he wasn’t doing well - that he hadn’t been doing well for years now. Exhaustion a haze that never quite left him. And the fear that things would never get better.

“I sleep enough,” Zuko said eventually, a coward as always, “I can still do my job, so. It’s fine.”

Sokka frowned, “Say that again, only this time try to convince me.”

“It’s fine. Not your problem,” Zuko said tightly, praying Sokka would drop it.

Sokka eyed him for a long moment, and then - miraculously - he said, “Fair enough,” and dropped it.

Zuko wasn’t a fool. The expression on Sokka’s face spoke volumes about _gone but not forgotten,_ but Zuko could put that off forever. It was something he was good at. And it’s not like they were ever going to do this again.

Sokka unpaused the movie, and the scene switched to the factory/prison, to Barnes delirious and strapped to a gurney, to the German peeling back his skin to reveal his deformed burnt-red face, tossing the eyeless mask into the roiling flames below. Zuko suddenly felt like he might throw up.

“I’m gonna - bathroom,” He said quickly, and stood.

“Want me to pause it?” Sokka asked, and Zuko shook his head and escaped.

The sounds of the movie followed him, even as he locked the bathroom door and turned the faucet on, and then the fan, when that wasn’t loud enough. The lights came on with the fan. He didn’t want to see himself so he kept his back carefully to the mirror and waited it out, long breaths to the count of his own elevated heart-beat. When at last Zuko felt steadier, the nausea quieting, he re-emerged and made his way back to the living room.

“You okay?” Sokka asked, looking at him with obvious concern. The movie was paused, the disfigured German’s awful noseless face frozen on the screen.

“Fine, yeah,” Zuko took a seat as far away from Sokka’s solid warmth as the couch would allow, and Sokka must have noticed because he removed his arm from the back of the couch and crossed it over his lap, fingers twitching like he was picking at his cuticles again.

Zuko could feel Sokka watching him, trying to be subtle about it, and wished he would stop. It had been a while since he was this hyper-aware of the messy edge of his scar, the way it barely skirted his nose before running like melted wax across his cheek to his partially reconstructed eyelid and his unreconstructable ear. All the doctors told him, over and over again, like it was supposed to make him feel better, that he was lucky to have even limited use of his left eye and ear. That if the housekeeper hadn’t heard him screaming and called 911 in time, the acid would have eaten all the way down to bone.

Of course, he hadn’t felt lucky in the aftermath.

“I didn’t -” Sokka started, and then cut himself off. A few seconds later, he said in a different, more composed, tone of voice, “So, this movie is pretty much all misery and noble self-sacrifice from here on out. Wanna switch to the Food Network? I bet Chopped is on. I swear, it’s the only thing they play on there, 24 hours a day.”

“Actually, I - I should probably -” Zuko picked up his empty plate from the floor, “Thanks for dinner, and everything.”

“Got somewhere to be?” Sokka asked. It was an innocent question, but Zuko felt caught in a lie he hadn’t even told yet.

“No. Not really,” He admitted, “I just - I’m not great company right now. Or ever.”

Sokka gave him a look like this wasn’t news.

“Well, if you got something better to do on a Monday night, don’t let me stop you. But it might be fun, who knows? Stay for a couple episodes, we can even break out the Oreos.”

Zuko didn’t _have_ fun, sober. Not anymore. But he knew that if something was going to happen between them, he had to stay. And even if nothing did happen and he was just fooling himself, he still had to give it a chance. 

Sokka tore open the package on the coffee table, and ate two Oreos in quick succession with an expression of pure bliss on his face. 

“My uncle watches this, I think,” Zuko said, once Sokka had found the right channel, “He follows a lot of cooking shows. He’s always trying to tell me about them when we Skype.”

That started Sokka off again. He had a lot of cooking show recommendations, which he’d apparently been waiting for someone to unload them onto, and Zuko felt obligated to say he would mention them to Uncle Iroh next time they spoke, as if he needed his uncle talking his ear off any more than he already did.

“Cool, let me know what he thinks,” Sokka said, and ate a third Oreo before pushing the package across the coffee table towards Zuko in offering.

The show was hard to follow, probably because Zuko wasn’t trying, but he appreciated the background noise cancelling out his thoughts. Sokka talked back to the judges and contestants as the episode progressed, a constant stream of _what were you thinking? That looks like shit!_ and _oh damn nice choice, I’d eat that_ and Zuko had to smile at how aggravated Mai would be right now.

But Mai was thousands of miles away, and Zuko was here now, and he honestly didn’t care. Sokka was fun. Just being around him made Zuko feel good. Nervous, maybe, like he was going to fly out of his skin. But good, too. 

The episode ended, and switched to commercials. Sokka turned the volume down low, and stood up to get himself a coke.

“Want one?” Sokka asked, but Zuko declined. If he drank any more caffeine, he’d lose whatever slim chance he had of falling asleep tonight. He listened to Sokka dig around in the fridge, and stared at the framed photos on the wall, a patchwork of kids and babies and motorboats.

There were a couple of Sokka, too, mixed in. A high-school graduation picture, the blue of his cap and gown bringing out his eyes, and then a more recent one of him in camo gear standing next to a dead deer? caribou? - something with antlers - with a shotgun hanging over his shoulder.

“Are you and Marge related somehow?” Zuko asked when Sokka came back to the couch.

“She’s my second cousin once removed, I think, from the Barrow side of my family. Gran Gran’s the one who knows all that genealogical stuff,” He smiled, “But she’s always been like a mother to me, since my own mom died.”

So there was that.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said, because he knew what that was like, at least in practice, “When did it happen?”

“Ages ago. I was just a kid. Ten or eleven maybe,” He shook his head, “Let’s not - I promised you a good time, and this isn’t something I want to talk about.”

That stung, although there was no reason for it to. Sokka didn’t know him at all, really, and it’s not like Zuko was spilling his guts about his worst memories to Sokka either.

“Okay,” Zuko said, and changed the subject, trying to sound effortless but not succeeding, “So, you’re, uh - you’re a mechanic?”

Sokka relaxed visibly, and settled in to tell him all about the trials and tribulations of getting ahold of new auto parts in the village.

“I’ll fix whatever needs fixing. Four wheelers, trucks, generators, anything with a motor. I’m okay at electrical and construction too - I rewired our whole house a few winters ago when I was going out of my mind trying to sober up - so if someone asks, I’ll help out. Mostly I just cobble things together and hope it works. Sometimes things blow up, but hey, hazard of the job, right?” He grinned at what must have been a memory, only a little chagrined.

Zuko wanted to see him at work - wanted to know what he looked like deep in the guts of a car, engine grease smeared across his cheek, wanted to know what Sokka would taste like if they kissed. But Zuko shut down that line of thinking fast, before it gave him stupid ideas.

“That’s what I miss most about engineering,” Zuko offered instead, “After you learn the principles of something, you get to put them to use and see how it all works together.”

“For sure,” Sokka nodded, “I still wish I could've gone to school for it, but someone needed to stay home with my dad. And after everything my sister went through to keep our family together, I figured she needed a break.”

“Did she end up going to college?” Zuko asked, which was the safest question he could think of.

“Yeah, she graduated from UAA a couple years ago with a degree in Environmental Studies. She’s still living in Anchorage, doing a bunch of stuff with this group she founded,” He smiled, proud and a little sad, “She’s gonna change the world one day.”

Zuko wanted to ask her name to see if she was one of the people who’d been harassing Ty Lee over the phone for weeks, trying to speak to him (shout at him, more like). But he stopped himself. Tonight wasn’t supposed to be about that. And anyway, he could just ask Ty Lee to forward him the list of blocked callers and search it for surnames that matched Sokka’s.

 Sokka was lost in his own thoughts too, but clearly they were of a different nature. Eventually he shrugged, “It all worked out in the end, I guess. And it’s better this way. Better for my dad.”

There was a story there, Zuko thought. But he wasn't going to ask - if Sokka wanted him to know, he’d tell him.

“Switching to Finance wasn’t exactly in my life plan either,” Zuko said, “Even after - after everything, I got to college still thinking if I stuck with Petroleum Engineering, one day my - one day I’d be able to fill my father’s shoes.”

“Kinda looks like you’re on the right path for that,” Sokka said, “I mean, Vice-President at, what? Twenty-seven?”

“Twenty-eight,” Zuko corrected automatically, “And to be honest, I have no idea how that happened. I gave up on ever getting this far a long time ago.”

It was more of a confession than he’d intended to make, but Sokka had put the TV on mute and was turned towards him, leaning in a little, intent, and Zuko found that the words kept coming.

“When I switched to accounting for my MBA, I was sure I’d just killed my chances of ever getting back in his good graces. And at that point, I didn’t even care. I _wanted_ to do something different with my life. But then I got a job offer, entry-level accounting, and I just -” He looked down at his hands, at his gold class ring, thick and heavy on his right-hand ring finger where he always wore it, “Despite all my good intentions, I couldn’t say no. I still can’t.”

“You’d do anything for family,” Sokka said, and it sounded like he was talking about himself as much as about Zuko, “That’s not a bad thing.”

“You don’t know my family."

“Guess I don’t,” Sokka said, “Your dad, though. Do you guys get along better now?”

Zuko wasn’t sure how to answer. He tried not to think about it, most of the time. His relationship with his father was different, certainly, than when he’d been in college, but it wasn’t better.

“He’s hard on me, but it keeps me motivated,” Zuko said at last, “This promotion is a chance for me to prove myself, to prove that I _can_ follow in his footsteps, if I try.”

Sokka frowned, fingers playing idly with the tab of his coke can, “Seems like a lot to live up to.”

“What are you trying to say?” Zuko asked, an edge to his voice that he couldn’t hide, “You don’t think I’m good enough?”

“C’mon, you know that’s not what I meant,” Sokka said, frustrated.

“Well that’s what it fucking sounded like.”

Sokka sighed, and scrubbed his hands over his face, “Jesus Christ. You’re impossible to talk to, you know that?”

“Fuck you,” Zuko said, with the last dregs of his anger. And then it was gone, as suddenly as it had come, replaced by sinking dread. He was screwing this up. Oh god, he was really screwing this up.

"I don't get it," Sokka said, eventually, looking up at him, "It really doesn't need to be this hard. I'm not - I'm not asking for much, I just want to get to know you better. See if maybe there could be something between us," He made a vague gesture. Zuko's heart was racing out of control, "But you keep sending me all these mixed signals, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what you  _want_ me to do, or maybe you don't want anything and I should just fuck off and leave you alone." 

“Sokka -” He started, but his throat was so tight, “I - I -”

"I have an idea," Sokka interrupted, softly, "It's probably stupid as hell, but I gotta know if I'm reading you right, or if I'm just - if this is all wishful thinking." 

“Wishful thinking?" Zuko managed to ask. 

But Sokka didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned over and kissed him.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not-super-graphic description of fish processing, if this squicks you avoid it  
> also, obviously, discussion of alcoholism

**Author's Note:**

> any resemblance to institutions or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental & no disrespect is meant by this depiction - so please don't confuse in-character racism, etc, for my own views, or the ultimate outlook of this story. if i have written anything offensive or glaringly inaccurate, please do let me know. unsurprisingly, i'm not an expert on oil drilling, corporate hierarchy, or environmental activism, so just bear with me folks.


End file.
